THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The rising expenditure for salary, pension and other benefits to the personal staff of ministers and other administrators holding cabinet rank is another mess in the making with regard to state’s finances.
The ‘Kerala Model’ of creating jumbo personal staff for ministers and providing statutory pension to even those who have completed two year-and-a-half years of service is now challenged by Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, who on Thursday asked Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan for a review of the policy.
In 2019-20, the government had spent Rs 34.79 crore as salary and travel expenses for the personal staff of ministers. A total of Rs 7.13 crore was spent on pension to retired staffers and Rs 1.79 lakh as gratuity. A comparison with 2013-14 shows that the spending on the salary and travel expenses of the personal staff of ministers rose by 25.30% in six years.
Of this, the salary and other benefits of the CM’s personal staffers recorded a whopping 190.61% increase. The pension expenses doubled — from Rs 3.53 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 7.13 crore in 2019-20. Factoring in the long life expectancy and periodic revision in salary and pension, this burden is set to increase steeply in the coming years.
In Kerala, personal staff of ministers and other administrators with cabinet rank are given permanent appointment in government service. The pay scales are high and their tenure should end with that of the administrator. The mode of appointment makes the staffers eligible for gratuity and life-long pension. The pension amount is less when compared to other government staff. But personal staffers enjoy an assured pension benefit, just like legislators,whereas government employees who joined service after 2013 have to settle for contributory pension.
Every new government in Kerala sneaks hundreds of people into government service while tens of thousands of youngsters selected by the PSC wait for appointment. Some “enterprising” administrators appoint double the number of personal staffers they are legally entitled to. For this, the originally recruited staffers are asked to resign upon completion of two-and-a-half years, the minimum service required for pension. New appointments are made for the remaining tenure. The minimum pension for personal staff members is Rs 3,550 while maximum is Rs 83,400.
Series that reported it all
TNIE’s three-part series ‘Cost to Exchequer’ published between June 2 and 4, 2021, highlighted how salaries being paid to ministers’ personal staff were bleeding state coffers, how ministers preferred to appoint ‘freshers’ despite an expert panel saying 554 attendant posts in the secretariat were no longer required and how ministers were entitled to employ 25 personal staff members even though union ministers could only appoint 15 staffers.