Sixth Pay Commission: Salary hike won’t change govt staff’s attitude, feel citizens

PUNE: Poor pay scale has always been the reason cited for corruption in government offices. Although the State government on Wednesday decided to implement the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission for its employees, a cross section of people believe the move is unlikely to play any major role in increasing efficiency and curbing corruption.

“The State government has increased the wages of the employees keeping in mind the Lok Sabha polls. The political masters want to keep the babus happy since it is the latter that conduct the polls. Sadly, despite the salary increase, there is going to be no change in the work culture of the employees. The government must link wage hike to performance of employees,” civic activist Vivek Velankar told Sakaal Times.

According to Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development director K S Subramanian, it is very difficult to expect a State government employee to accept salary increase as motivation factor to increase efficiency.

“The State government is trying to improve the living conditions of its employees. But this is not enough in getting them to respond by increasing efficiency. However, there is still one per cent of government employees who are honest and consider salary as their sole source of income,” he said.

Industrialist Suresh Mhetre did not foresee any change in the attitude of the large section of the government babus, who “work with vested interest”.

Welcoming the decision, Narayan Joshi, convenor, Joint Action Committee of Pensioners, State government, teaching and non-teaching union, said the only regret was that employees would be neglected, as they would miss a huge percentage of the wage hike compared to central government employees.

“This has affected the employees morale and they are unhappy towards the wage hike of 25 per cent. It has been said that there is no efficiency in State government employees, but the fact is that the pendency has increased because the employees handle several responsibilities simultaneously,” Joshi claimed.

Pune Bar Association president Vinayak Abhyankar said the hike would certainly boost employees’ morale to work. However, certain restrictions must be imposed on them to reduce the pendency rate.

But the general public is not convinced. Charudutt Pawar, a businessman said that it would be a positive change for those who had been working diligently. They would surely put in more efforts. “But staffers who have already developed the habit of shirking work will continue to do so in spite of the wage increase,” he said.

Centre for Advocacy Research consultant Sanyogita Dhamadhare said since the entire system was affected by corruption, the salary hike would hardly make any difference.

Source: http://www.sakaaltimes.com