***You cannot defend when you have Trqjan horses within. Ministers were more vocal in the support of employees' brief than the latter were. It seems nobody has seriously applied his mind to the repercussions. Nor has anyone pondered over the steps on how to raise so much money.***

WHO took away the emperor's clothes is never told. But the story that he went round the city named without anyone pointing out that he had no clothes on is practically in every children's book However, in the case of Central government It is known who gave away even the leafy cover that hid the nakedness of administration's coffers. This was done by none other than the government's own ministers.

The ministers, who negotiated the pay hike with the employees unions, were ardent exponents of their demands. They fought on the side of trade unions. They were even more generous than those who were agitating for more salary. The ministers were not bothered about the burden their action would put on the exchequer. Their efforts was to placate the employees' leaders.

The bill comes to roughly Rs 13000 crore. Strange, this is the figure which finance ministry officials quoted long before the negotiations. No. it was not their hunch. Their thinking was simple : They had provided that much money in the budget for the raise in government servants' salaries. They thought their Job was simple. Little did they think oi the states, which are now under pressure from their employees for parity with central hands. If the money for the hike at the centre and in the states were to be calculated, the amount would come to a whop-a figure of Rs 40.000 crore.

still there would be many categories of public servants

who are left out. They too want part of the bonanza, which Is oeing distributed freely. Some of them are already up in arms. Murmurs from the private sector are also audible.

1 find no Justification for the raise in salaries. The dearness > allowance of employees has been pegged to the cost of living. Every time the price Index has gone up, the employees have been given extra money to cover the rise. Then why Increase in the salary?

Why the government did not put up even a semblance of fight against the revision of salaries is understandable. You cannot defend when you have Trojan horses within. Ministers were more vocal in the support of employees brief than the latter were. It seems nobody has seriously applied his mind to the repercussions. Nor has anyone pondered over the steps on how to raise so much money. More imposts, more prices and more inflation, that is India's simplistic solution — the soft state as we are. Already the government has increased import duty indiscriminately. The next cut may be in the allocations for education and health, already suffering because of paucity of funds.

The hike in salaries may have made some sense — and may have been more acceptable to the public — if it had been

linked with productivity. In fact, the pay packet is getting heavier and the output of civil servants lighter. None from the government side even raised t he question of more efficiency at the negotiating table How could this have been possible? nils Is understandable because the ministers did not want to annoy lakhs of government servants. who constitute a substantial chunk of the electorate. A populistic step as it is the different political parties in the

United Front are happy to go along with it.

The Pay Commission s recommendation to cut the bureaucracy by 30 per cent was a sensible proposal. That too was brushed aside Again, it was considered an unpopular mea sure. There was no discussion on this point with the employees' representatives, although non-official experts have pointed again and again that the bane of government is'Its bloated bureaucracy Anyone can see that It Is coming apart from the seams as are our cities because of over population.

But I am not surprised over the government's reluctance to reduce the number ol employees. 1 had a bitter experience when I was India s High Commissioner in London a few years ago. 1 wanted to trim the staff of 250, Some officers told me privately that they did not have enough work. The Supply Mission, for instance, was tnere from the day the High Commission opened. I suggested it be closed as the initial flood of purchases had become a trickle

Practically every ministry has a niche in the High Commission where its senior officers. by turn, get posted to enjoy a cushy tenure. An employee from India is given, apart from his salary, a foreign allowance, furnished accommodation, medical benefits and free passage for his wife and dependents every two years. Some officers are entitled to a washing allowance as well, a perk from the days of Raj

The proposal which I forwarded to New Delhi, was to reduce the staff to 180. axing nearly seventy posts It meant asaving of SI million (Rs 5.5 crore) annually. But I faced opposition from practically every tier of the bureaucracy. The Expenditure Secretary in the finance ministry. Mr Geethakr-ishnan. was in London at the lime. I discussed the proposal in detail with him. He wanted his No 2. Mr Gopal Tandon, to visit London to examine the proposal further, the justification for which 1 could not understand. He also asked me why I had not recommended any cuts in the strength of the Indian Foreign Service personnel. I told him that their turn would come in the second instalment, which I had already initiated with Deputy High Commissioner Salman Haider.

The way the proposal was stalled for seven months, till I left, is a good example of how determined bureaucrats can defeat all efforts to economize. My appeals even to the Prime Minister and Finance and Foreign Ministers were to no avail. I am convinced that one of the major reasons the Indian government cannot cut its expenditure is that the bureaucracy has come to develop a vested interest in a large apparatus.

It is ironical that the same bureaucracy carried out the whims of Mrs Indira Gandhi's son. Sanjay, during the Emergency. Desire for self-preservation. as admitted by a number

of public servants before an enquiry commission, was the sole motivation for their behaviour. Fear turned them into willing tools of tyranny. Is there no other way they can work?

When I announced the closure of the Supply Mission, the Foreign and Defence Secretaries tried to interfere. They questioned my authority. 1 informed them that the Supply Mission had already been closed and that all personnel had to leave in the next few weeks. I then received a telex message from New Delhi asking me to let certain officers continue as their children's schooling would be interrupted.

As it happened, only two persons left before my departure. following the fall of the V P Singh government. I was generally kept in the dark about officers' postings. No vacancy was kept pending as I had asked. In fact, to my horror, a post from the India Foreign Service was upgraded for the appointment of a minister in the political section.

The three defence services also had too many officers. I discussed the matter with the Air Chief when he was in London. and wrote to the Army and Naval chiefs of staff. Nothing came of the effort. My attempt to amalgamate six Indian nationalized banks operating in Britain, into two. also met with failure. I am convinced that the number of government servants will go on increasing. The tragedy is that you can neither fire them nor can you make them work.