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Paswan's populism

AFTER MAKING A virtual mess of railway finances in his previous avatar as the Railway Minister in a bid to earn the goodwill of 16 lakh employees of the monolith and create vote banks in his constituencies, Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan now wants to play th e role of a messiah to 3.2 lakh employees of the Department of Telecom and Telecom Services. The largesse announced by him to these employees includes rent-free telephones without registration or installation charges, 70 free calls pe r month and a 70-day bonus. He has also promised to regularise the services of over three lakh extra-departmental employees in the Department of Posts as he had done in the Railways.

At a time when the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister have been desperately trying to cut subsidies and downsize the Government, often at the cost of displeasing the coalition partners, Mr. Paswan's latest largesse amounts to sabotaging these effort s. The Congress(I), apparently wants to question the Government on this dole to telecom employees when it has justified cutting the subsidy on foodgrains supplied to the poor through the public distribution system to save Rs. 900 crores in order to rein in the fiscal deficit. Incidentally, Mr. Paswan had played a major role in giving the Central employees more than what the Fifth Pay Commission had actually recommended. Consequently, not only Central Government finances but also those of the States and a large number of Central public sector enterprises have come under great strain through a chain reaction. Some of the State governments do not have the money even to pay staff salaries. Recently, the Finance Ministry finalised a draft of the Fiscal Resp onsibility Act (FRA) to cap the burgeoning fiscal deficit and set a time-frame for bringing down the revenue deficit. It is also trying to discipline the profligate States by making them sign memoranda of understanding to initiate fiscal reforms before p roviding accommodation to tide over the financial crisis. However, unless the Centre first puts its house in order, it will have no moral authority to preach the virtues of fiscal discipline to the States.

This is not to suggest that Mr. Paswan's proposals to offer better perks and service conditions to the employees of the DoT or to regularise the services of lakhs of extra-departmental employees are without any merit. Mr. Paswan might argue, and with jus tification, that the Railways too allows free passage for its staff; so do airlines the world over. But while holding out the goodies, he must have extracted commitments on productivity and customer service, which he apparently has not. Ideally, the Gove rnment should be a model employer and offer an environment that promotes better work culture and higher productivity. Unfortunately, however, the trade unions, with the patronage of the political parties, have developed a mindset in most PSUs that has ha mpered productivity. Most of these undertakings are overstaffed and their employees opposed to all restructuring plans aimed at improving efficiency and profitability.

While many private commercial organisations do offer their employees better pay and perks, they are linked to productivity and profitability and come without any life-time guarantee of employment. The PSUs can also emulate them provided they are corporat ised or privatised to generate adequate profits and reasonable returns on investment. The Fifth Pay Commission, while recommending the substantially enhanced pay scales, had suggested a minimum 30 per cent cut in government workforce within a decade. How ever, not even a small beginning has been made in this direction; in fact, there has been a net addition to the number of Central government employees over the last two years.