MARCH 06, 2011

Staff strength and wages bill grow despite multi-facet reforms

By TIOL Budget Team

THE expenditure on burgeoning bureaucracy in the Union Government appears to be impossible to control.

In spite of countless liberalization measures over 20 years, numerous E-governance initiatives and aggressive outsourcing of services and manpower, both the staff strength and the wages bill continues to increase with the passage of each Union budget.

The latest budget thus provides for an increase in the number of civilian employees on the rolls all ministries excluding defence sector by 56879 to estimated 3430843 in 2011-12 from an estimated 3373964 in current year. The actual number of persons on civilian rolls at the Centre stood at 3224486 on 1 March 2010.

The Budget provides for 9.14% increase in the total wages bill (pay plus allowances) of the civilian employees to Rs 102,891.55 crore in 2011-12 from Rs 94270.5 crore in preceding year.

The budget provides for virtual flat growth in travel expenses of the staff . The expenditure on this count is estimated at Rs 3297.48 crore in 2011-12, as against Rs3295.89 crore in previous year.

Of the wage bill, the expenditure on pay is projected to grow 6.67% to Rs 60967.54 cr in 2011-12 from Rs 57150.01 crore in preceding year. Similarly, the expenditure on allowances (other than travel expenses) is estimated to increase by 12.94% to Rs 41924.01 crore from Rs 37120.49 crore.

The Expenditure Budget does not give a true picture of the expenditure on establishment. One hopes the Finance Ministry would start disclosing the expenditure on outsourced services and manpower under a separate accounting head. The total cost of outsourcing should be added to the cost of establishment.