Civil Servants’
Incentive
THE GOVERNMENT, in order to curtail the
number of staff in the bureaucracy and make it more effective and efficient, announced the
voluntary retirement scheme for the civil servants the other day. As per the scheme, civil
servants, who are more than 50 years old and have already completed 20 years of service
are eligible to take voluntary retirement. Civil servants who opt for this scheme would,
in turn, receive a lump sum equivalent to seven years’ pension—a major incentive
for the employees to opt for retirement. The government has also made provisions of some
other attractions for the employees who want to take voluntary retirement. That such a
scheme to reform the bureaucracy and make it efficient and effective was on the
government’s anvil ever since Finance Minister Mahesh Acharya, while presenting the
budget estimates for the fiscal year 2000/200, had clearly expressed the government’s
intention to bring about reforms in the administration. Additionally, among the top
priorities of the present government, administrative reforms is one. In this regard, it
has adopted several measures in terms of policies and programmes.
The government’s rationale for
streamlining the administration is that Nepal’s bureaucracy is perceived to be
bloated—and hence it needs to be pruned to make it more effective, efficient and
people-oriented. Several commissions constituted to recommend measures for administrative
reforms in the past have also pointed out the needs for restructuring the bureaucracy by,
among others, reducing the existing strength of employees and the number of offices. As
per these suggestions, the government has already reduced the number of ministries. Since
the nation’s bureaucracy is the tool to implement the government’s pro-people
policies and programmes, this latest incentive should be viewed as the government’s
decision to bring about the desired changes in the entire administrative mechanism. For,
unless the bureaucracy is effective and efficient, such policies and programmes cannot be
judiciously implemented to benefit the people. It may be also noted that right after this
government came to power, it has adopted the policy to boost the morale of civil servants
by, among others, opting to make the bureaucracy a truly professional organisation so that
it will provide better and more efficient services to the people. As such, the
government’s latest scheme should be commended by all in that it will ultimately lead
to the creation of a more efficient, effective and pro-people bureaucracy.
Other Story
|
