Revisiting PARC recommendation on grade-based public service

The administrative system of Bangladesh has been a legacy of its colonial past, which in many instances could not uphold the dignity and honour of public employees at all levels. Article 27 of the Constitution of People's Republic of Bangladesh stipulates: 'All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law'. Article 133 of the Constitution mentions all officers/employees as 'persons in service' of the republic (Karmachari in Bangla). But in reality, the officers and employees in public service have remained classified as class-1, class-2, class-3 and class-4 ever since the colonial era, giving rise to a class-based system that apparently contradicts the spirit of the Constitution. It was in this backdrop that the last Public Administration Reform Commission (PARC) of Bangladesh had recommended the introduction of grade-based identification of public servants instead of the current class-based one in the year 2000.
The Public Administration Reform Commission (PARC) was constituted by the Awami League-led government back in January 1997 to recommend policies, programmes and activities for improving the level of efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and transparency in public organisations of Bangladesh. The then government displayed great pragmatism by setting up the Commission on the eve of the 21st century, when there was a global movement towards adoption of the concept of New Public Management (NPM), i.e., performance-based and result-oriented administration with provision for 'outsourcing' and 'contracting out' wherever possible in order to uphold the rights of citizens for better and cheaper services. The Commission was headed by a distinguished civil servant and former Director General of CIRDAP Dr. ATM Shamsul Haque as the chairman and included luminaries in the field like M. Khalid Shams, Khandakar Asaduzzaman, Quazi Shamsul Alam, Dr. S A Samad, Dr. Akbar Ali Khan, Syed Manzur Elahi and Advocate Md. Rahmat Ali as members.
The Commission submitted a comprehensive 3-volume report to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in June 2000, covering many areas like improvement of public service delivery, civil service reforms, reorganising institutions and rationalising manpower, restructuring field administration and decentralisation, combating corruption, reducing wastage and promoting value for money, strengthening parliamentary supervision, facilitating private investment and devising a mechanism for implementing PARC recommendations. It was a world-class report which synthesised many previous reports on public sector reorganisation and reforms since independence and incorporated the latest trends in public management all over the world. The then government was committed to implementing these recommendations, but unfortunately that could not materialise as the subsequent government which came to power in 2001 shelved those on political considerations. Thus ended a brave and bold attempt to overhaul and reform the country's age-old public administrative system.
The recommendations put forward by PARC towards reforming the civil service in Bangladesh were divided into interim, short-term and long-term programmes. One of the major items among the 30 interim recommendations called for identification of employees in accordance with their grades instead of the prevailing class system. While recommending a grade-based public administrative structure (by linking employees with their salary-grades), the PARC had opined that the class-based identities often had an adverse social cum institutional impact on the employees and they often fell prey to various class-based discriminations. It argued that class discriminations as practised during the colonial era could not be supported and applied in case of employees deployed in the public services of an independent country like Bangladesh.
Examination of the National Pay Scales of the GOB shows that the salaries of officers and employees have been segregated into 20 grades. It is found that the class-1 employees belong to Grades 1-9, class-2 employees are bracketed with Grade-10, class-3 employees in Grades 11-18, and class-4 employees in Grades 19-20. The pay-scales provide for separate benefits/allowances for the employees on the basis of their pay-grades. Therefore, the grades serve as the essential criteria for allowances/benefits, and not the class to which the employees belong.
The PARC had opined that as the classification of officers/employees into four classes was not applied as a criteria for giving salary and benefits, therefore instead of class-based identities as in the colonial era, the employees of the republic could be identified on the basis of their grades. The only classification that could be applied was 'gazetted' and 'non-gazetted' public servants. In this way, class discrimination could be eliminated from the public service of Bangladesh, PARC had opined. It was hoped that through this, the outlook of the public servants employed in the service of the republic would undergo positive transformation.
While looking back, it is found that this particular recommendation of the PARC on introducing grade-based instead of class-based identities for public servants is still very much relevant in the context of present-day Bangladesh. It can still be profitably implemented for streamlining bureaucracy in the country by ensuring equal dignity and honour for all public servants, which in turn may facilitate more transparency, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of public services. A reformed public service can be the most vital input in the materialisation of Vision-2021 as envisioned by the present grand-alliance government.
Dr. Helal Uddin Ahmed is a senior civil servant and former editor of Bangladesh Quarterly. [email protected]