The IAS flies abroad

India's rulers insulate themselves further

The Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance government supposedly believes in personal austerity, but that clearly does not extend to the perquisites of office for India's most senior officers. It has been reported that the Department of Personnel and Training of the Union government has decided that the Indian taxpayer will pay for medical expenses incurred abroad on complex procedures by senior bureaucrats of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFoS). An official was quoted as saying: "A member of the Service shall be eligible to obtain medical treatment outside India or, as the case may be, to claim reimbursement of the cost of medical treatment obtained inside or outside India." This will also extend to reimbursement for costs incurred by members of the bureaucrat's family. International airfare will also be reimbursed for the patient and one attendant. This is an extension of benefits already available to members of Parliament (MPs) and to Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers posted abroad.

On the one hand, those bureaucrats who have brought this additional benefit into being - and stand to benefit from it - can claim that, since MPs and their brother-officers in the IFS already have this benefit, it must be extended to the IAS as well. After all, anything that dents the IAS' self-image of paramountcy must be resisted - regardless of the fact that the jealous guarding of such privilege at any cost remains one of the major problems with much-needed administrative reform of the Indian government. That it comes at a time when bureaucrats and politicians are seen as particularly out of touch with the problems of the country seems to make no difference. Already the bureaucratic and political classes are insulated from the real estate market, through government-provided housing that spreads across the heart of New Delhi at a substantial implied cost. Other such insulations abound; Air India, for example, is never likely to be privatised while it can be treated like a personal vehicle by India's rulers. Even free companion tickets on the troubled state-owned airline were kept going reportedly because bureaucrats liked to be able to take a companion along on international official trips. Already government servants no longer need to go to public hospitals in order to claim reimbursement, so they can avoid experiencing first-hand the mess that is India's publicly provided healthcare. Now they can avoid even India's private sector and go abroad for treatment. Never mind that a no-frills bed for a night at even an average hospital in New York City costs around $3,000, almost Rs 2 lakh.

This shameless extension of its own privileges by India's ruling classes needs to stop. It has had very real effects on the sense of entitlement that suffuses the administration. The benefits for MPs, too, must be rolled back. If the IAS is permitted to claim such benefits, will it stop there? Will not the top echelons of the Indian army next claim that they are being deprived of their due, adding another few thousands to the 11,000 serving bureaucrats already made eligible under this new decision - excluding those retired, and all their families? It is past time for a basic reorganisation that raises officers' salaries considerably, but completely removes such insulating perquisites of office.