Pays scales in the government

[Srikumar <Srikumar@simexmail.com.sg>]

Sanjeev wrote : "Clearly, fair compensation has much to do with this"

I just thought I will share the Singapore experience in this regard. The
government about a year or two back put in place a policy to benchmark
salaries of ministers and MP's based on private sector salaries. The
ministers are paid based on the average of the highest salaries paid to
six professions (Engineers, Doctors...etc.). The other salaries both of
civil servants and other government employees are similarly benchmarked.
The Prime Minister in Singapore gets paid around S$90,000 per month
(about US$ 55,000), right it is per *MONTH*, the commissioner of police
gets about S$30,000 per month.

They have successfully attracted the best brains from the private
sector, in fact the Prime Minister used to be a CEO of a large shipping
company, there are others from the top management of banks, oil
companies etc. (some of whom apparently had to take a pay cut when they
moved to the government!)

However, I should add that there  is some resentment from the general
public about these high salaries, which you hear from time to time!
There are also arguments about the relative safety of government jobs
vis a vis the private sector etc., even though the electorate are quite
well educated and are able to see the benefit of this.

We should therefore be aware that, while paying high salaries to
government employees and MP's is the most logical thing to do, it will
also be the most difficult policy to implement. Every opposition party
will make  a lot of noise about this and no government in India in the
foreseeable future will have a strong enough mandate to push this
through.  Actually, if we think about it, today as a society we pay too
high a price to the corrupt
officials and ministers without getting the benefit of doing so!

Sri


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