After a respite of about a fortnight the government and the agitating employees appear heading for a showdown once again. And once again it will be the general public that will have to bear the consequences of it. So far the government’s handling the situation has been more failure than anything lese. The employees too have not relented so far. Everybody is expected to know the precarious financial situation the state is faced with and the inflation that has deprived the employees of any advantage of the implementation of the 6th Pay Commission that could accrue to them with the hike in their wages. The unprecedented rise in prices of food and other essential commodities witnessed immediately after the government of India announced the acceptance of the 6th CPC recommendations resulted in near total neutralization of the impact the hike in pay scales of the employees would make. Even the state legislators felt the impact of the unprecedented price rise and passed a bill giving a hike in their own wages during the current session itself. This is something natural and as such no eyebrows were raised. As was evident from the observations made by the participants during the all party meet convened recently by the Chief Minister nobody is averse to the idea of giving the employees their due. However, the question remains that of the lack of resources for paying the arrears to the employees. The consensus arrived at the meet on seeking central assistance could possibly bring a solution, as union government should be in a position to help the state in this matter. And there is no harm in doing so even if someone may not like it citing propriety as a reason for not doing so. A state that has been rendered so much dependent on the union government’s help for any conceivable thing, cannot afford to part with whopping Rs 4200 crores for simply paying the arrears to its employees without the latter’s support. Currency being a union government’s domain the state cannot be expected to churn out bundles of promissory notes to offer to the employees. There should be no politicking on the issue and attempts at drawing a political capital out of it should be summarily discouraged. The employees too need to read through the attempts at aggravating the situation and try to come to terms with the situation. There is no problem that cannot have a solution. Instead of taking a confrontationist stance, that can only add to the woes of the people, they need to engage themselves in negotiations to arrive at a decent solution to the vexed issue. The government too needs to deal with the situation sincerely without involving in any kind of divide and rule as was given out on April talks between different group leaders of employees and the official team. It is unfortunate that the employees’ leadership is a divided lot and different groups are acting independent of each other. As long as they are divided they will continue to add to the chaos that could ultimately land the people in trouble. The general public is already dissatisfied with the public services and public servants. The corruption in rank and file of the officialdom has already cost a fortune to the employees in terms of reputation and there is hardly any sympathy left with them among the masses. The divided employees’ leadership needs to work hard to assuage the hurt feelings of the people and try everything to redeem the image. And then sky could be the limit as far as pay or perks is concerned. A word to the government; if it has conceded in principle to implement the recommendations of the 6th CPC in totality, it should not dither. What it needs to do is to come down heavily on the unscrupulous elements in the administration and among politicians who are the fountainhead of all the corruption in public life- the mother of all the ills afflicting our society. Both sides need to think of the poor people who are going to be impacted adversely should they continue to lock horns. All said and done, they need to find an amicable solution to the problem. And that too before long.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 4 Apr 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 4 Apr 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 5 Apr 2010 00:00:00 IST