Did the Fifth Pay Commission affect the economic reform process?
The jury is out on that. But two years ago, the World Bank held the Fifth Pay Commission as the ‘single largest adverse shock’ to India’s strained public finances. The global body said India’s civil service was ‘not unduly’ large, but there was a ‘pronounced imbalance’ in the skills. In its review, the Bank added: ‘There is a pronounced imbalance in the skills mix since 93 per cent of the civil service comprised class III and class IV employees for both the Centre and various states.’ So what led to the Sixth Pay Commission? For the last four years, Communist leaders and trade unions have been demanding the setting up of such a commission. In 2005, the government set up a committee to study the demand. The committee, headed by Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi, turned down the request for constituting the Sixth Pay Commission. The committee said the Centre might not be able to bear the additional burden and the states were just recovering from the impact of the Fifth Pay Commission, who
