:: Dilip Cherian

Starting troubles

Dilip Cherian

May.18 : The controversy over pay revisions continues to linger. After Indian Police Service (IPS) officers and defence personnel contested the government’s decision to grant higher salaries and faster promotions to Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, one more set of babus is now poised to agitate on the issue of pay parity. Apparently, the Sixth Pay Commission had recommended pay parity for Central Public Works Department (CPWD) engineers with other services with a two-year gap and the government had accepted that recommendation in August last year. The CPWD babus are now tired of waiting for a formal order to be issued by the department of personnel and training for implementation of the recommendation.

According to sources, the Central Engineering Services Group A Association has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his intervention. Interestingly, the letter suggests that the Public Works Department (PWD) babus have been working to implement the development agenda of the Congress party, but their efforts have not been recognised by the government. The missive cites the example of the preparations underway for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi and states that all infrastructure-related work for the games is being handled by the CPWD babus. It is not clear whether mentioning this example is just an innocent example or a veiled threat!

Meanwhile, the IPS officers are on the warpath again, this time protesting the government’s proposal to place chief secretaries in Central ministries in the higher salary slab of Rs 85,000 per month.

They claim it is discriminatory. Clearly, the discontent in babudom is far from over as the new government will have its hands full from the start.

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Uncertain times

Those ready to take the reins of government must be pleased that Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar retires in June, defence secretary Vijay Singh and foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon bow out in July. One can, therefore, expect a reshuffle of a continuous kind once the Congress and its UPA allies settle to focus on the next round of governance.

But change is already underway, as seen in the removal of Air India chief Raghu Menon and appointment of Arvind Jadhav in his place. Usually such important appointments are not made during elections, but clearly the government believed that it could not wait. So should we expect some more surprises on this front? Clearly, the uncertainty is making some babus very jittery. One thing, of course, is certain. There will be plenty of new faces in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, we can only wait.