To avert financial collapse, Himachal must cut avoidable spending: Shanta

Former Chief Minister Shanta Kumar on Monday said that Himachal Pradesh was facing an unprecedented financial crisis and must urgently curb avoidable expenditure, beginning with its unsustainable and bloated administrative structure. He added that for a small hill state with a population of 75 lakh, the size and cost of the bureaucracy had reached alarming proportions.

Shanta Kumar, in a press statement issued here, said that successive governments had over the years created new offices and posts without any serious assessment of the workload, public utility or long-term financial sustainability. “Every additional office imposes a permanent financial burden in the form of salaries, pension, vehicles, office buildings, support staff and maintenance cost. At a time when the state is struggling to pay salaries, pension and dues to contractors, such extravagance is indefensible,” he added.

He recalled his tenure as Chief Minister and said that he had introduced strict austerity measures by first putting his own office under financial discipline. “I curtailed the number of vehicles accompanying him as Chief Minister and imposed a complete ban on the use of government vehicles on Saturdays and Sundays, except for emergency services such as ambulances and fire engines.” He also ordered the disconnection of unnecessary telephones in the offices of ministers, senior bureaucrats and other departments. He had directed the officers concerned not to come to his programmes unless he calls them, thus saved fuel expenses.

The former Chief Minister said that he ended the practice of individual departments publishing their own calendars. Instead, a single government calendar was issued and its cost was recovered from government offices by using papers from both sides . “In the first phase, these measures resulted in saving about Rs 50 crore and Rs 30 crore of it came by restricting the unnecessary movement of government vehicles,” he added. He also introduced the policy of one officer one vehicle.

Shanta Kumar regretted that the top-heavy administrative structure had become one of the principal drains on the state exchequer and a major contributor to the current fiscal distress. “Development activities have stalled, welfare schemes lack funds and vital sectors such as health and education are under severe strain, even as the administrative apparatus continues to expand unchecked,” he added.

He said that the situation demanded immediate rationalisation of government offices or merger or closure without delay. The creation of new posts and offices, he added, should be frozen until the financial situation stabilises. “Governance cannot be reduced to a job-creation exercise at the cost of the state’s economic survival,” he added.

Shanta Kumar said the savings generated through these reforms should be redirected to priority areas such as healthcare, education, infrastructure and employment generation. More importantly, decisive action would send a strong signal that the state was serious about restoring fiscal discipline.