THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: During the tenure of the first Pinarayi Vijayan Government, the 19 ministers had directly recruited 72 persons to the post of office attendant. Around Rs 2.5 crore was spent as their annual salary when hundreds of office attendants were idling away in the state secretariat. The new government has also initiated steps to recruit personal staff in lower ranks and it is learnt the number would be almost the same.
The penchant for recruiting office attendants and drivers is rampant among ministers as even with a qualification of class 10, a person can be recruited in the lower rungs. Major political parties use these posts as a reward for grassroots workers, who have been holding the party flags high. The fresh recruitment of attendants was done in parallel to the study of the expert committee, appointed by the same government, on rationalising revenue expenditure.
The committee headed by Centre for Development Studies director Sunil Mani had reported that 554 posts of attendants in the secretariat were no longer required with the implementation of e-office and that the personnel be redeployed in other departments.
The report also called for redeployment of 204 computer assistants at the secretariat. It may appear paradoxical; the ministers had directly appointed eight computer assistants during the time, spending Rs 36 lakh per year as their salary. According to the report, a large number of posts of supporting staff in various departments is available for redeployment. Three of the departments named in the report together had 255 such posts.
Personal staff replaced halfway through for pension benefits
According to sources, several administrators in successive governments had followed a deplorable practice of giving employment to double the number of personal staffers they were legally entitled for. For this, the originally recruited staffers were asked to resign upon completion of two-and-a-half years, the minimum service required for pension. Subsequently, the ministers would replace them with fresh candidates for the remaining tenure. Minimum monthly pension for personal staff members who complete three years will be around Rs 2,500 per month. The service period of those who complete two-and-half years will be rounded off as three years.
On the contrary, some exceptionally influential persons had served in personal staff for 25 to 30 years. Normally, 30 ears is considered to be service period enough to earn full pension for a government employee recruited by PSC. They managed to get this long service by getting into the personal staff of a minister when their party is in power and, when not, in the staff of the opposition leader. Among them are some retired additional private secretaries who get over Rs 60,000 as monthly pension, the same benefit received by a retired additional secretary of the secretariat.
Economist and chairman of the Fifth Finance Commission B A Prakash terms the lifelong pension for personal staff, even those with a service of two-and-a-half years, as a financial extravaganza, which is unjustifiable.
“Even PSC-recruited government employees after 2013 have to settle for contributory pension. But the personal staffers, mostly party sympathisers and relatives of the ministers, are getting an assured pension benefit just like a legislator except for the quantum,” said Prakash. He also rejected the view that political appointments are a necessity for politicians for having connections with people. “Don’t the government employees, like staffers at village or panchayat officers, have people connect? Appointments by way of deputations would do more good to a minister’s office since the officers are familiar with rules and procedures. It can also address the issue of excess deployment in certain government departments after computerisation,” he said.
Rs 2.5 crore