Commission Member Defends Timing Of Dissent Note

The dissenting member of the fifth pay commission, Suresh Tendulkar, has expressed surprise at reports that he had submitted his note of dissent too late for the commission to offer a rebuttal. In an interview with Business Standard he said he had made clear at each meeting that he would put up his points of disagreement in a note later. As the chapters were being finalised, I was preparing my note of dissent, he said. Tendulkar pointed out that there was no question of the differences brought up in the text itself. A rejoinder is the only way out because the report indicates what has been arrived at as a consensus, he said. But I had indicated to them that the submission of the report could be postponed by a week, so that both sides got the report. It would have only been fair that they got enough time to write a rejoinder to the dissent note, he said.

 

Among other issues in his note of dissent, Tendulkar has emphasised the need for a more open and transparent promotion policy at senior levels in the bureaucracy. The member has proposed that the special committee assisting the cabinet secretary should have at least one non-IAS officer to ensure a detached view neutral to different services at the time of empanelment.

Tendulkar, in his note of dissent, has pointed out that insufficient data on size and distribution of pension slabs, the liberalisation of old allowances and the lack of predictability of contingent allow-ances have made for underestimation of the financial implications of the recommendations.

The member said that the commission was agreed on the fact that only reduction of positions at the top could effectively cut down the size of the bureaucracy. Only then would the surplus in the lower rungs become clear as most of the lower levels constituted complementary staff for the higher levels.

On the issue of increasing the retirement age to 60, the member pointed out that this could have been legitimised only if the present size of the bureaucracy was satisfactory. But over the years there has been considerable indiscriminate recruitment in Group A, so that there is already overcrowding at the higher levels. Increasing the age of retirement will only aggravate the problem.

On the IPS officers reaction to the alleged preferential treatment of the armed forces, Tendulkar said their grouse was unjustified. Unlike the IPS, which insists on being treated as a civil service, the armed forces are forsaking their right to unionise, aside from other privileges, and it is only fair that they be given a better deal, said Tendulkar.