The Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendation to hike salaries by up to 42 per cent is good news for 55 lakh central government employees. The commission’s recommendations will help in reducing the gap between their salaries and those paid to private sector employees but I am surprised, that there are no visible recommendations to increase the productivity of government employees. When the Sixth Pay Commission was set up in July 2006, one of its stated objectives was to work out a “pay package that is suitably linked to promoting efficiency, productivity and economy — for transforming the Central Government Organisations into modern, professional and citizen-friendly entities dedicated to the service of the people”. The commission’s recommendations do everything apart from encouraging austerity in government organisations. And measures to increase efficiency and productivity are conspicuous by their absence. A never-ending list of holidays is a major reason for the poor productivity of government organisations. Central government employees get 204 holidays out of 365 days. On working days, attendance is poorly enforced. Several ministries and departments are running scores of projects that are delayed by years, resulting in costly budget overruns and loss of taxpayers’ money. While no reliable estimates are available, the figure for losses on account of poor productivity cannot be far from about Rs 20,000 crore that the government has to spend — to pay for the salary hike. Fraudulent notesFinance Minister P. Chidambaram recently informed the Rajya Sabha that the RBI has issued several advisories to banks for controlling the spread of fake currency notes. He also said that the RBI has received several complaints regarding dispensing of fake currency through ATMs of banks in 2007. Banks are advised to establish forged banknote vigilance cells at their headquarters and to install note-sorting machines at all branches that maintain currency chests, have large cash transactions, or are located along border areas.Although officially a mere Rs 10 crore worth of fake currency was seized across the country in 2007, this amount is only the tip of the iceberg. Even conservative estimates put the amount of fake currency in use at several hundreds of crores in the country. Disturbingly, the latest crop of fake notes are so well forged that even investigators trained to detect them find it hard to differentiate them from the real currency. Printed in sophisticated presses across India’s western and eastern borders, this money is entering India through a myriad of air, land and sea routes. Investigations reveal that jihadi outfits located across the borders have emerged as principal carriers of fake currency into India. Not surprisingly, security officials agree that a large amount of this currency is funding terror networks in the country — apart from aiding drug trafficking and smuggling of arms and explosives.Blocking funds for terrorists is a critical step in combating their spread — curbing the spread of fake currency in the country should be the first step in this direction. RBI advisories are therefore a good beginning, but we should be ready to take drastic steps — even if it means replacing the entire existing supply of high-value notes with a new type having the best security features.The writer is a Congress MP in Rajya Sabha
