Thiruvananthapuram: Former High Court Judge C.N. Ramachandran Nair, who heads Kerala’s Tenth Pay Revision Commission, has said government employees should put in more work and cut their holidays.
In another suggestion that is sure to anger Kerala’s highly unionised government staff, Nair suggested that union activities should not be allowed during working days and they should ideally be held on holidays.
However, he made clear that he was not at all against the concept of holidays.
“It is good to have a two-day weekend. Many countries have that. But here we have holidays coming in the middle of the week very often,” he said.
According to him, government staff who are keen to engage in union activities during week days should take leave on those days or else do so on holidays.
In another suggestion that may not be received well by schoolchildren and teachers, he said school sports and cultural activities should be held during vacation time.
Nair said on Tuesday he was opposed to deploying government staff for election duties, and suggested that such work be instead given to retired government staff. He added that while government revised pay for its staff, there should also be mechanisms to improve their productivity and also deploy them effectively.
There were many takers for Nair’s comments on social media. While many of them applauded his prescription of more work for government staff, one commentator said, “Employ non-resident Keralites in government service and the state will be saved”. Another commented that another hartal [work stoppage] may be triggered in Kerala by Nair’s suggestions.
In July, the Tenth Pay Revision Commission had recommended increasing the minimum basic pay of state government staff and teachers to Rs17,000 (Dh940) per month, from the previous level of Rs15,300.
