CHANDIGARH: The President and the Prime Ministers appeal to states to reduce the size of ministries as part of the austerity drive has put the Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal in a dilemma as to how to go about the exercise. If taken up in earnest it can cause a lot of heartburn and discontent among the party rank and file.

Bhajan Lals problem is further compounded by the patch-up between is two senior Jat ministers Shamsher Singh Surewala and Birender Singh who recently were with each other to earn his goodwill.

On the contrary to the discomfort of his adversaries Bhajan Dal keeps telling the Press and his party men that he is firm on inducting two more faces in his ministry in the near future. Such assertions help him retain a majority of legislators who have been opening against hope for the past six months to have a ministerial berth in his fold against strong inducements from the Jat lobby which is trying to dislodge him.

Familiar ashes with the “ayaam gaya ram” politics of the state and its legislators attraction for office Bhajan Lal argues that economy can be brought about through other means too. Perhaps forth is reason he was extraordinarily prompt in announcing 10% cut in the salary of his ministerial colleagues.

Party men close to the chief minister point out that the president’s suggestion to reduce the size of the ministry to one-tenth of the total strength of the assembly is not feasible in the case of small states like Haryana where the assembly has only 90 members. It means the state should have only nine member ministry which of course is not enough even to give representation to all the 16 districts. Besides a chief minister they argue is supposed to keep the party united by accommodating all sons of pressure groups.

However Bhajan Lals detractors both within the party and outside contend at the chief minister need not go strictly by what the President and the Prime Minister have to say about the size of state ministries In fact what they wish to convey to the states is that their chief ministers should observe certain norms while deciding the size of their minister so that no undue burden is put on the state exchequer.

They further point out that if Bhajan Lal finds it difficult to reduce the size to one-tenth of the assembly strength he should at least prune it to reasonable level 0 that a message is conveyed to various groups within the party. What have to be taken into consideration now are “convenience of finances” and not the “convenience of pressure politics.

Of the total strength of 53 Congress MLAs in the state assembly 33 are ministers (15 cabinet ministers and 18 ministers of state) and one parliamentary secretary. OF the remaining 16 MLA’s as many as six are chairmen of various boards and corporations. The deputy chairman of the state planning board has been given the rank of a cabinet minister. The exchequer spends nearly Rs 1.5 lakhs on each minister every month in terms of his salary and other allowances including 2 palatal government bungalows.

The chief minister feels that the party leaders advocating reduction in the state ministry’s size are interested more in the spread of discontent in the party than in actual austerity. A general belief in his camp is that the moment he drops a few ministers these very persons will leave no stone unturned in pitting one faction against the other by alleging that the chief minister has retained his favorites.

The first salvo was fired by the pradesh Congress chief and revenue minister Birender Singh when he said that all the ministers should tender their resignations to the chief minister to enable him to reconstitute the ministry on the line proposed by the President Instead of taking the initiative himself Birender Singh later stated that the ministers should first evolve a consensus among the selves over the size of the ministry.

The very next day the chief minister who saw some mischief in the statement categorically stated that he has no plans to reduce the size of his ministry. Of course there is no better a judge than Bhajan Lal of the legislator’s attraction or pelf and office as it was he who on 1980 hijacked the entire Janata legislature party to the Congress: camp after the victory of Indira Gandhi Overnight the Janata government in the slate had become the Congress government.

A general complaint by Haryana Politicians and ministers is that whenever there stalk of austerity they are called upon to make sacrifices. Nobody according to them complains against the states oversize bureaucracy whose salary bill keeps increasing every month.

Surprisingly in a small state like Haryana there are 10 financial commissioners 2 commissioners-cum-secretaries and 14 joint secretaries assisted by fleet of deputy secretaries and undersecretaries. No wonder nearly 35% of the annual budget is spent on staff salaries.

Birender Sigh who is also the revenue minister is of the view that the increase in the salary bill has become so alarming that the state government should immediately resort to a 50% cut in it intake of fresh IAS officers. Besides the AS officers are in surplus in the state as many of them have just nothing to do. As for the IPS officers he is of the view that though they are also in surplus their number cannot be reduced in view of the increasing militancy in the state.

As regards general recruitment the financial commissioner-cum-finance Secretary A. Bannerj who has been asked to explore ways and means to exercise some cuts in government spending is believed to have advocate streamlining of the clerical as the finance department is averse to creation of additional clerical posts in any department However in the case of the technical posts the department will continue to be a bit liberal though the concerned head of the department will have to convince it of the need for the new hand before the vacancy is actually sanctioned.

In addition some populist schemes such as the old age pension remission of interest on farm loans availed of during the past seven years and free education for women up to graduation have become a drain on the limited resources of the state. It is high time the ruling parties applied some brakes to its populist policies and instead do a bit of hard thinking in the light of the Centers plain speaking.

Article extracted from this publication >> February 14, 1992