Over-staffing promotes inefficiency

YES, the Fifth Pay Commission did recommend a 30 per cent reduction in the staff strength, but it remains unimplemented. No government will ever have the courage to implement it.

In fact, they have no moral right to implement the recommendation when the size of their ministries is ever increasing.

Downsizing should begin at the top and not at the bottom. Our elders feel let down when they recall that there were only five ministers in pre-Partition Punjab — a much bigger state, then consisting of today’s Punjab, Haryana, part of Himachal and Pakistan’s Punjab — still governance was much better.

Over-staffing leads to under-work, duplication of work and inefficiency. If there is need to reduce the staff strength by 30 per cent, there is scope for downsizing the ministries by more 30 per cent.

So, let us begin at the beginning. Let our elected representatives set an example by giving a free hand to the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers to reduce the size of their ministries. Our parliamentarians and legislators should remember that they have been elected to serve the public and not to hanker after loaves and fishes.

Wg Cdr C. L. Sehgal (retd)
Jalandhar

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Woes of pensioners

Haryana, Punjab and Union Territory pensioners are entitled to get indoor treatment in Chandigarh’s hospitals whereas this facility is not available to Central government pensioners.

Throughout the country only 14 big cities have CGHS dispensaries, but there is no such dispensary in Chandigarh though thousands of Central government serving and retired employees are living here.

Efforts must be made to open a CGHS dispensary in the Sector 32 Government Hospital so that Central government pensioners may get the benefit of hospitalisation.

K.B. SUD
Chandigarh

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Declaration of assets

Mr Justice A.S. Anand, Chief Justice of India, deserves appreciation for introducing a scheme to make it mandatory for every judge to declare all assets owned by him, his spouse and dependents in the form of real estates or other investments . It is a step towards clean administration.

Law-framers — parliamentarians — too should not be above the law. Each one of them alongwith his nomination for elections must file a declaration of real estates or other investments till March 31 with the Chief Election Commissioner. Each person in politics must file a statement in this regard on an yearly basis.

S. R. MITTAL
Ludhiana

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No pressure on Mamata

This is to point out that recent news report with the headline “There are enemies within: Mamata” in your daily Dec 9 was factually incorrect and baseless. The Railway Minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee, never alleged that certain ministers from Bihar in the Cabinet had ganged up to discredit her. Nor has she ever said that she is facing difficulties in running the ministry following pressure from within the Cabinet.

It is to put on record that the expenditure for salary and wages forms a part of revenue expenditure and is met from the Railways’ own resources. It is, therefore, incorrect to say that the Ministry of Railways has approached Ministry of Finance to provide funds for the enhanced salaries and wages as a result of the implementation of the recommendations of the fifth Pay Commission. There is no proposal to increase the fare and freight at present. Adjustments in fare and freight rates is, however, a normal budgetary exercise which is undertaken every year.

Moreover, there is no proposal to change the freight structure of any commodity, including coal and fertiliser, at present. It may be clarified that there is no subsidy on coal traffic, though the fertilisers traffic is subsidised, and there is no move to withdraw the subsidy on fertiliser.

The Railway Minister has also not threatened to stop free travel allowed to MPs/MLAs. It may be pointed out that MPs are entitled to free travel facilities under the provisions of the Salary Allowances and Pension of Members of Parliament Act, 1954, and the cost of travel is reimbursed by the Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha Secretariats.

Similarly, rail travel coupons for MLAs are not “free passes”, but are sold by the railways to the state governments concerned at the actual cost as per their demand. The issuance of complimentary passes under the discretionary power of the Railway Minister also has been completely stopped. Hence the question of “loss” on account of travel by MPs/MLAs, etc, does not arise.

The report that the Railway Minister is “displeased” at the appointment of Mr Bangaru Laxman, Minister of State for Railways, is also baseless.

ANIL KUMAR SAXENA
DPR, Ministry of Railways
New Delhi (Railway Board)

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Confusing telecom notice

This refers to a public notice published in The Tribune dated 4.12.1999 and issued by the Department of Telecommunications, Jalandhar telecom district, regarding the change of telephone numbers.

The main aim behind such public notices is to make the general public aware about new telephone numbers and thus avoid any inconvenience to them. In this regard, the telephone numbers are printed in a specific order (mostly arranged in an ascending order) so that it becomes convenient to identify any particular number.

The public notice under reference did not follow any such order most of the numbers were listed in a haphazard manner. This left with no other choice than to scan the whole of the notice leading to unnecessary time wastage for the general public.

The Department of Telecommunications should thoroughly check and verify the contents to ensure that it is user-friendly. This will be a step towards more customer satisfaction.

MANAN GUPTA
Kapurthala