Budgets, Pay Commission recommendations and the like

February and March are the months associated with budgets. Budgets of each and every nature is out- Railway Budget, Union Budget, State Budget, Corporation Budget, Municipality Budget, Panchayath Budget, GCDA Budget…all of which that have a bearing on the most common budget- the family budget of every individual. With the general elections fast approaching, expectedly, it was playing safe for P Chidambaram as far as the Union Budget was concerned. The increased exception limits for salaried class and the move towards writing off Rs. 60,000 crores worth of farmers’ debts are the only redeeming features of this Budget with almost everything else remaining the same in effect. With the highly respected trio of Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia at the centre, the common man as well as the industry expected a more robust budget. But, it was politics that prevailed over paisa as far as the Union Budget was concerned this year. The results have started showing- inflation rising to a 39- month high of 7% as well as the government’s inability to give a satisfactory explanation to the sources of Rs. 60,000/- crore that has been proposed to be written off. Add to that, the sixth pay commission recommendations that has brought forth a huge hike in salaries for the government staff, it would not be long for the central coffers to go empty. I do agree that the government staff is not as well paid as the ones in the private sector. But, the bane with government departments is that they are all over staffed and at no levels has anything been done to fix responsibility or to penalize for non compliance with work. Till the time a proper monitoring and reward system is put in place to appraise the performance of government employees, nothing is going to change as regards working of the government- ay hike or not. Honestly, I do not see such a thing happening in my lifetime.

All that is left for the common man to see is how the Srikrishna commission recommendations are going to affect the national coffers and what would remain therein by the time the General Elections are announced. I am trying to be calm but positive I am not…