Salaries secrecy draws criticism

Reveal expenditure for IAS and IPS officers, parliamentary panel tells government

AParliamentary panel has expressed its “strong displeasure” to the government for not providing details of the expenditure incurred on the salaries and allowances of IAS, IPS and other officers.

The Committee on Estimates, in a recent report, suggested an effective mechanism to assess the contribution of officers from the all-India services — the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFS) — to national growth.

“The Committee express their strong displeasure (to the government) for not providing the details of total expenditure incurred on salary and allowances of the officers of all India services in states and the Centre,” said the report of the panel, headed by senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi.

‘Dismayed’

It urged that the government furnish yearly data to the panel within three months on the expenditure incurred on officers by the Central and state governments.

The committee was “dismayed” to note that no efforts had been made by the government to assess the contribution of these services.

“Not only that, no study in regard has ever been made even by some outside agency,” reads the report on “Estimates and performance review of all India services”.

The panel noted that there was no mechanism to assess the expenditure made on IAS, IPS and IFS officers by the Centre and state governments and their contribution towards the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in relation to the cost incurred on their functioning.

The panel emphasised the need for evolving an effective mechanism so as to assess the contribution of the services to national growth, it said.