Now that the brouhaha around the hunger strike by Anna Hazare has settled down, his supporters and sympathizers have started to talk of 'battles won but the war that has to be fought’.
Whichever path this new ‘Lok Pal’ creature snakes up, whether
If you think it is farfetched, think again. During the media frenzy an actual figure was quoted around - of 20,000 Lok Pal officials - to keep watch over the greedy fingers of the parliamentarians, legislators, bureaucrats and God knows whom else. Along was also flung about the estimate of money involved to ‘pay’ such a bureaucracy - about Rs. 800 crores (~ $ 175 mil.).
Now, I am not sure from where the 20,000 personnel or Rs. 800 crores figures came from, whether it includes the proposed state Lok Ayukthas too or why such a huge number of personnel are required. I am not even sure of how many civil servants are employed by the GoI and the various states at present. A 2003 article talks of 3.4 mil. and 6 mil. respectively, but I think it includes all Civil posts and not just Civil Service.
Every year there are less than 1000 Civil Service posts open for recruitment (it varies between 500 to 1000) and if we assume that a Civil Service Officer become one at an average age of 23, she will have 35 years of service left. Logically at any given year there should only be 35 years of Civil Servants, recruited at the rate of (at the maximum) 1000 per year which gives us 35,000 civil servants. If we add an equivalent number for the various States and Union Territories (coincidentally, there are 28 states and 7 union territories making up a total of 35 entities), we end up with about 70,000 Civil Servants.
Add to them 802 Members of Parliament (552 Lok Sabha + 250 Raja Sabha) and allowing for say 8 MLAs (plus MLCs) per MP for the states, we end up with about 7200 (~ 6400 + 800) elected representatives and a grand total of about 77,000 to be ‘watched’.
Even if we allow another 30% for hanger-ons, hustlers, freeloaders and other parasites who hover around the corridors of power, we would have less than 100,000 people to be watched.
Is there something wrong with my calculation or are the Team Anna actually gone wonky?
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Whatever, further thinking about it is scaring the shyte out of me. And I don’t want any nightmares tonight. For that reason, this will be a half post to be refinedtomorrow. in the coming days.
Whichever path this new ‘Lok Pal’ creature snakes up, whether
- as another regulatory body which derives its powers from the legislation passed by the Parliament, like TRAI or SEBI (which the tunnel vision Anna Hazare and his team would be content with); or
- as a constitutional institution or body which derives its powers directly from the Constitution of India, like CAG or ECI (which is what is desirable and proposed by Rahul Gandhi)
If you think it is farfetched, think again. During the media frenzy an actual figure was quoted around - of 20,000 Lok Pal officials - to keep watch over the greedy fingers of the parliamentarians, legislators, bureaucrats and God knows whom else. Along was also flung about the estimate of money involved to ‘pay’ such a bureaucracy - about Rs. 800 crores (~ $ 175 mil.).
Now, I am not sure from where the 20,000 personnel or Rs. 800 crores figures came from, whether it includes the proposed state Lok Ayukthas too or why such a huge number of personnel are required. I am not even sure of how many civil servants are employed by the GoI and the various states at present. A 2003 article talks of 3.4 mil. and 6 mil. respectively, but I think it includes all Civil posts and not just Civil Service.
Every year there are less than 1000 Civil Service posts open for recruitment (it varies between 500 to 1000) and if we assume that a Civil Service Officer become one at an average age of 23, she will have 35 years of service left. Logically at any given year there should only be 35 years of Civil Servants, recruited at the rate of (at the maximum) 1000 per year which gives us 35,000 civil servants. If we add an equivalent number for the various States and Union Territories (coincidentally, there are 28 states and 7 union territories making up a total of 35 entities), we end up with about 70,000 Civil Servants.
Add to them 802 Members of Parliament (552 Lok Sabha + 250 Raja Sabha) and allowing for say 8 MLAs (plus MLCs) per MP for the states, we end up with about 7200 (~ 6400 + 800) elected representatives and a grand total of about 77,000 to be ‘watched’.
Even if we allow another 30% for hanger-ons, hustlers, freeloaders and other parasites who hover around the corridors of power, we would have less than 100,000 people to be watched.
Is there something wrong with my calculation or are the Team Anna actually gone wonky?
-----
Whatever, further thinking about it is scaring the shyte out of me. And I don’t want any nightmares tonight. For that reason, this will be a half post to be refined
This is a great article, and a great topic to explore. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete:-D
Deleteu'r welcome