10 years, 3 salary hikes later, central govt's understaffing issues persist

The central government’s expenditure on the salaries of civilian employees increased three-fold in 10 years between 2006-07 and 2016-17, even as nearly 500,000 posts remained vacant, on average, every year, according to government data.
“A poor country with weak state capacity like India, when confronted with the pressure to redistribute, had necessarily to redistribute inefficiently, using blunt and leaky instruments,” said the Economic Survey of 2016-17. State capacity refers to the government’s ability to utilise resources to deliver essential services, such as education and health.
Concerns regarding the quality of government services being affected due to understaffing were raised in the 2015 report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, the committee to review and revise central government employee pay packages. For every 100,000 people, India had 139 central government employees, compared to the US, which had 668, the report said

Cabinet approves 2% hike in DA for central govt employees and pensioners

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved additional 2 per cent hike in Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR), a move that will benefit about 11 million central government employees and pensioners, an official release said.

The impact on the exchequer on account of both DA and DR would be Rs 61.12 bn per annum and Rs 40.74 bn in the financial year 2018-19 (8 months from July 2018 to February 2019).

The hike will be effected from July 1, 2018, the release said.

The decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here.

"The Union Cabinet...has approved to release an additional instalment of Dearness Allowance (DA) to Central Government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners wef July 01, 2018 representing an increase of 2 per cent over the existing rate of 7 per cent of the Basic Pay/Pension, to compensate for price rise," it said.