KOCHI: For a state that purchases over 60% of the farm produce it needs from other states, Kerala’s agriculture department strangely employs more people than Karnataka and Telangana.
The extent of excess staffing in the state’s agriculture department becomes even more bizarre considering that the farm land in Karnataka is 10 times more than that in Kerala while it is four times more in Telangana.
No wonder, the salary, pension and interest payout comprise over 65% of Kerala’s revenue expenditure.
According to the data collated by D Narayana, chairman of the Kerala Public Expenditure Review Committee (KPERC), the state agriculture department employs 7,903 people — 128 more than its northern neighbour.
While Karnataka employs only 7,775, Telangana has an even fewer number of staff — 6,292 — in its agriculture department.
Karnataka has 110.76 lakh hectares (ha) of agricultural land, while Telangana has 48.93 lakh hectares.
The agricultural land in Kerala, in comparison, is just 11.16 lakh hectares.
Simply put, there is a government officer for every 141 hectares of agricultural land in Kerala, while one employee deals with 1,425 hectares or 10 times more land in Karnataka.
“This cannot be justified by any means. What we need are immediate administrative reforms. We can’t go on like this forever,” said Narayana, who’s also a governing body member at the Thiruvananthapuram-based Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation.
Another data reveals the amount of money that bleeds through state’s cash-strapped coffers, which anyway is filled with borrowed money.
For the 2019-20 financial year, the plan expenditure of the Kerala agriculture department was Rs 1,100 crore, while its non-plan expenditure, which includes paying salaries, interests etc, stood at Rs 900 crore.
This means, 45% of the funds allocated for the agriculture department goes into non-productive purposes.
“Though the Kerala Administrative Reforms Commission has submitted several reports, none of them have looked seriously into the excess staffing at various government departments,” said Narayana.
To be sure, the overstaffing is not restricted to the agriculture department. Kerala also employs more people in the government sector than Karnataka and Telangana, which are far bigger states in terms of the total geographical area.
While a total of 5,21,531 (about 5.22 lakh) people work in the government sector in Kerala, Karnataka, which has at least five times bigger geographical area, employs 5,12,521 (5.13 lakh), whereas the figure is even lower in Telangana at 4,40,025 (4.40 lakh) people, pointed out Narayana.
K Vasuki, director of agriculture, Department of Agriculture Development & Farmers Welfare, said the share of the primary sector in Kerala’s economy has been coming down since the 1960s as the area under cultivation declined even as the share of the tertiary sector (eg. tourism) grew.
According to the economic review, for instance, the land area used for paddy cultivation alone declined from 8,76,000 hectares in 1975 to 4,31,000 hectares in 1996 -- a decline of nearly 50% in 21 years.
The result: local rice production barely meets one-third of the total consumption requirements of the state.
“But, we at the agriculture department are planning a series of new initiatives to put our staff to productive use. The initiatives for value-added agri-products and focus on newer fruits is aimed at that,” said Vasuki.
The Expenditure Reduction Committee on employment and recruitment had suggested identification of excess staff and their redeployment after the implementation of e-office.
It also suggested the abolition of posts of typists and other posts that have become redundant and not filled up for more than one year.
“Cutting staff or abolishing posts are very sensitive issues politically. What’s needed is a strong political will,” said a senior officer.