Government’s New Pay Scale
A Bold Decision

By Gandhi Raj Kafle

THIS year employees of the nation must be congratulated. After all, their salaries have increased substantially. Finance Minister Mahesh Acharya and his team members, who had been working to prepare the budget for Fiscal Year 2000/2001, must be thanked for the salary increase. "It’s the first time the government has raised the salary of its employees’ substantially. In this vein the decision is historic, so, the Finance Minister in particular and the government in general must be commended for the raise in salary.

In context of economic development of Nepal, low salary has been a long felt problem and grudge of civil servants. Yet, the problem was inadequately addressed to in the past due to the shortage of financial resources. And, the truth even today is that the economic condition of the nation has not changed remarkably. As such, why has the government decided to raise the salary of all employees so handsomely? Has there been any sudden and substantial improvement in the financial position of the country? Or, the employees’ record is delivering the goods and service to the people has improved to a remarkable extent these days? Furthermore, can the country’s socio-economic investment sustain the additional burden and also ensure us a promising result for speedy development in the years to come? Of course, the answers will be hard to come by. As such was it necessary to raise the salary of the employees. Nevertheless, the government must have done a through exercise before it raised the employees’ salary.

Some economic pundits emphatically say-if balanced development formula does not work than an imbalanced one could. For a country like Nepal, its economic development history does point out that nothing can be achieved in a few years if resources are allocated inadequately for all sectors. The government, in such a situation has to be efficiently choosy and holdly selective while investing in economic development; there is no alternative to it. The government, while announcing the budget for the Fiscal Year 2000/2001 has raised the salary of employees substantially, there is no doubt about it. But, this substantial rise too, can give a positive impact in the improvement of our economy only if we are be able to keep our economy in order.

In fact, many economic sectors are mutually complementary. If one is reformed, the others get the required impetus to be reformed. That’s why demonstration affect worldwide in many mays has been taken as an importantly inspiring factor of socio-economic change. Improvement in one sector, therefore, demonstrates a story of success and can also become a lead sector for macro-economic stability.

Indeed there are enough proof to support this. The British government did it through bureaucratic strengthening for centuries and the fact is that they have maintained their past glory even today. The quick, responsive, strategic and objective administration of the United States is said to be the backbone for the socio-economic success in that country. In fact, the development vision given to a nation by the political leadership is implemented through bureaucracy. Therefore, an effective, adequately facilitated and well-responsive civil system everywhere in the world is the need of the hour. With the advent of democracy, the political leadership, even though it changes frequently, has been increasingly realising this and has not lagged behind in strengthening the civil administration to face the forthcoming challenges.

Nepal’s bureaucracy had been weak for long also in terms of salary and other perks it got in the past. It was notable weaker in terms of smooth delivery of goods and services to the people as per the instructions and guidelines provided to it from time to time by the Council of Ministers. In fact, administrative procrasination, craving for commission, absenteeims, lethargy and bribery all have contributed make our public services delivery mechanism quite weak.

The government, therefore, wants to set its administration in order. For it, many panels were formed, many studies carried out, many suggestions recommended and many rhetorics made to implement the reports. But, the reality was that neither the country could provide enough facilities to itsemployees nor could the civil servants’ record of service delivery improved. The country was kept in an indecision state for some time, which in turn could not hoost the morale of civil servants.

Nevertheless, at least for employees this year, the budget for coming fiscal year, which has already been announced in the joint sitting of the Parliament nearly one and half month earlier, is exceptional. With it, the government, it seems, wants to take the bull by the horns. But, is the attractive pay scale enough to motivate the employees to move ahead towards this direction?

From the starting of the new fiscal year according to the budget speech, a government peon is getting Rs. 3000,00 as his monthly salary while the Chief Cabinet Secretary, which is the highest post in the administrative hierarchy in Nepal, will draw Rs. 14,000,00 per month. Similarly, the budget speech also commits to adjust the increment as per the regulations for raising pension for retired civil servants. Furthermore, an attractive provision is also announced for the employees, who want to take retirement after completion of 20 years of service. The new pay scale is applicable to the army, police, teachers, and corporation staff.

For the make of argument, it can also be said, the present pay hike is inadequate. But, if we realise the economic condition and strength of the country, the government’s revised pay scale is very liberal, very optimistic and very motivational. However, the room for initiating necessary efforts to control price rise, inflation and market uncertainty is always there. The Finance Minister says there is no need to worry about price rise only because of the rise in the pay scale of the civil servants. Certainly he is right if we think over it theoretically because it’s not the salary, but the fluctuation of demand and supply for goods that induces price and inflation rise. However, the market, as being noticed, sometimes shows a zigzag trend, which needs a free and transparent handling. Moreover, will the increased salary boost the morale of employees thereby to strengthening the Finance Minister hands for avoiding market distortions to protect the consumers rights in the days to come? While it remains to be ascertained, now that the employees have been given a substantial raise in the normally low salary scale, it behooves upon them to discharge their duties and responsibilities from their respective side to translate the vision of the political leadership into concrete fruits and services.

Desertification: A Growing Problem

By Mohan K.C.

ENVIRONMENTAL degradation in recent times have increased drastically following the rapid rate of population growth and expansion of human activities. In fact, Nepal is famous as a paradise as far as the variety of flora and fauna are concerned. The fact that many of the birds, animals and plants available in the country are not found any where else in the world makes it all the important for making efforts at protecting them.

Awareness

There has been a growing clamour for protecting the environment in recent times and the government too has not been unaware of the situation. The government has formulated plan of action with necessary back up measures through the enactment of various laws, rules and regulations. But the implementation aspect has not been up to the mark.

In this regard, the population growth together with the grinding poverty that burdens a significant segment of the population has created great pressure on the natural resources. It may not be surprising to find farmlands or barren stretches where once there was dense vegetation. The disappearance of forests leads to the decimation of the animals and birds and birds that had in the past made the area their habitat.

The forests as an important resources of the country has suffered much with the encroachment of humans and their activities. Barring some places, tress are cut down but hardly any effort is undertaken for afforestation programmes. It is true that in the rainy season many programmes are organised to plant saplings all throughout the Kingdom but follow up is missing. This means that the saplings are destroyed because of the lack of care and the grazing of cattle.

All through the years afforestation programmes have been launched with much financial inputs but the returns have been negligible. This is all because the functions are highlighted but looking after the saplings later on is not given attention. Such an attitude has left many places as they were before while at the same time more forests are being cleared to meet the increasing needs of farm lands, timber and fuel wood.

If the trend of deforestation continues at the same pace it will not be long before denuded hills and barren stretches will be the rule rather than exceptions. The effects of deforestation are multi-fold. It can lead to desertification, less or more rainfall, soil erosion and so on which will have serious impacts on the life of the people.

It may be worthwhile remembering that the problem of environmental degradation is not a problem of Nepal only, it is worldwide problem specially in the developing countries. And an outcome of the disregard for the environment has led to the problem of desertification.

The concern regarding desertification is not without any grounds.

To increase awareness and action plans in the areas which are threatened by drought or desertification, World Desertification Day is observed every year on June 17 as per the United Nations Conventions to combat desertification. Though Nepal is also facing the problem of desertification to some extent, Africa is most affected by it.

It is estimated that about 10,000 hectares of land in the country in affected by desertification. This comes as a shocking piece of revelation. The trend is also on the increase as the natural resources are being destroyed in an unprecedented manner. In fact, irresponsible human activities are primarily behind desertification. Only if the human activities are guided by the concern for environment protection ideals, the problem of desertification can be minimised to a great extent. But for
this to happen, first of all the people must be made aware to the gravity of the situation.

The problem though not very big is bound to grow to a gargantuan proportion if immediate measure are not taken to avert the situation. This danger signal is moreover reflected by the fact that the 13 watershed areas of the country are also facing crisis at the moment.

The government has realised the problem and this is the reason why it had signed the relevant convention on combating desertification which took effect in December 1996. Moreover, it is a matter of some consolation that the government is to draw up a plan of action soon to check the spread of desertification.

The need to check desertification is very urgent if the future generations are to enjoy the fruits. It has been said that we must leave the land in a better condition than in which we have lived. But this high talk cannot be understood by the poverty ridden people so appropriate strategies must be adopted so that the people themselves participate in environment conservation activities.

The new environment plan of China to reduce desert areas must be commended . According to the strategy they have come up with a plan to divide the target area into four different ecosystems. But this mention is made to show that deserts are the outcome of desertification. Once the problem grows out of hand it is almost impossible to make it return to its old glory.

Need

Nepal must learn from the experience of other countries which are reeling from the problem of desertification. The need is go for action plans at once lest the once lush areas of the country go the way of desertification.