Reform requires artfully using the benefits given to one constituency to neutralise vested interests that oppose reform elsewhere, leveraging largesse for broader structural change. For instance, the case for doing something for farmers is overwhelming. If credit relief is structured as a kind of cash transfer, it is entirely appropriate, and could even have been larger. But a unique fiscal opportunity designed to mobilise the goodwill of farmers could have been used to create space to restructure fertiliser subsidies. Not necessarily to slash them, but to ensure that a greater proportion goes directly to farmers than to supporting inefficient industry. A more politically imaginative party could have seized the initiative by increasing direct cash transfers to the poor and spending even more on health and education. But to finance this it could have brokered a deal on disinvestment or pension reforms and exposed the Left’s greater allegiance to small vested interests than the larger good. Reform is about taking a few risks and hard bargaining, particularly when you have a few resources to throw around.In this sense, the Sixth Pay Commission is likely to remain another missed opportunity. It would be difficult to argue that government employees should not share the gains of growth and some hikes are necessary. Government often is astonishingly self-serving and inefficient, but a whole-scale delegitimisation of government service is neither here nor there. The question of the kinds of reform government needs is complex. But there is, arguably, no question more critical to India’s future growth prospects. But the conversation about this has to move beyond pedantic and minor changes in service rules; it has to embrace a conversation about the character of government and the kind of talent we want in it. And the context of a pay hike is the right time to do it. If you were running any organisation the first question you would ask is about the quality of human resources. This question is seldom asked in government. For instance, district-level officials end up administering a hundred schemes. While all schemes have a statement of financial liability, few carry a human resource analysis. Recruitment has become a matter of mechanics, not of matching personnel to objectives. For instance, there is a proposal floating around to double the size of the foreign service; the demands placed on India certainly require this. But the IFS, like most areas of government, is terrible at mobilising the kind of talent it needs in the right places. Instead of more generalists, it probably needs more lawyers and domain experts. No government as immune to lateral and temporary entry into its ranks as ours is can mobilise the expertise it needs. And this will also require far more flexible payment structures.There is no realistic assessment of where government actually needs more personnel. It is vastly deficient in some areas and over-staffed in others. Raag Darbari had a psychologically astute portrait of the two sources of government inefficiency. There is the conventional non-performance of employees. But in more cases the reason was subtler. The magnitude of the task was so overwhelming that most employees felt they would not be able to accomplish anything anyway. The evocative line, “itna kaam hai ki sab kaam thap pada hai”, was a wonderful reminder that if resources are not matched to objectives, it has a corrosive effect on motivation. We speak as if schemes are often well designed, but poorly implemented. As Appleby pointed out a long time ago, nothing is more invidious than the distinction between design and implementation. For one thing it is a ruse to absolve the top layers of any responsibility for the failure of schemes, as if the Planning Commission and purveyors of Centrally sponsored schemes should not be held responsible once they pass their directives.More importantly, this distinction is a reminder that the hierarchical structure of our administration ensures that no one takes ownership of anything. In a strange way, government offices are also the purest distillation of passive aggressive class warfare, an inevitable consequence of the enormous social gap between the different levels of government. Training for the IAS by the Kennedy School of Government and Duke University is all fine, though it fallaciously assumes that the problem with the IAS is its lack of exposure to the world. The real issue is that very little attention is paid to lower levels of the civil service and frontline service providers, who are actually more consequential. Would it not be time to leverage pay hikes for the top tiers of government for a commitment to diminish all kinds of hierarchies that beset this system and radically restructure work patterns?The problem of absenteeism in areas like health and education is rampant. There are various proposals to overcome this — from individualised incentives to decentralisation. But as far as one can tell, no government has thought it proper to make the problem — the unions — part of the solution. Before a pay hike is doled out to teachers, will government sit with them and share the magnitude of the problem and ask them to come up with workable solutions? No union would defend absenteeism, and a fair contract would be to extract some verifiable commitment to meeting targets in return for a pay hike. Government salaries cannot match the market; and there are limits to the internal differentiation that will be politically acceptable. But government would be shooting itself in the foot if it did not recognise it is competing with the market, and in certain critical areas more differentiation of salaries will have to be allowed, whether in high-tech research in DRDO or in the case of some independent regulators. Government will also need structural changes. For instance, there is no doubt that the present architecture of Centrally sponsored schemes will have to be replaced by more powers and block grants to states and local government. This will redefine the Centre’s role more towards monitoring and evaluation than in designing schemes. Correspondingly, it will require strengthening the capacities of local government in radically different ways. The simple point is this: government requires flexibility, retraining, reallocation of tasks, dismantling of certain hierarchies, tailoring recruitment to fit objectives, more flexibility and differentiation, some collectively negotiated commitments to performance in some areas. A pay commission is the right time to have this discussion. But when it comes to reform we never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research pratapbmehta@gmail.com
