CIVIL servants play a crucial role in governance as they implement policies, translate laws into action and provide essential services.
However, they stand completely demoralized because of a series of measures that the Government has already undertaken in the name of structural reforms and the threat of right-sizing that continues to instill the sense of insecurity among civil servants. In a latest development, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Cabinet has approved The Civil Servants (Amendment) Bill, 2025 outlining right-sizing plans of the Government, which is likely to cause large-scale layoffs and displacement of employees.
The Government maintains its rightsizing initiative targets financially inefficient departments for potential shutdowns or mergers, with an emphasis on offering voluntary golden handshake packages for employees in non-essential roles. There was definitely a need to trim the size of the Government as part of the measures to reduce expenditure but there are reasons to believe that the process is not being implemented in a transparent manner and continuation of the exercise for an indefinite period is causing frustration and uncertainty among the civil servants, who already stand disheartened due to winding up of pension scheme, steep reduction in pensionary benefits of existing employees and peanuts offered in the name of pay raise. The unemployment rate is already high but the plan is expected to render thousands of employees surplus, putting question marks about their future. The Government argues there are 115,000 vacancies in different departments and most of those to be declared as surplus might be adjusted against them but there are issues of suitability, which might impact the overall performance and delivery of the bureaucracy. It is also a fact that induction of fresh manpower against these posts would have helped tackle the unemployment problem to some extent besides offering an opportunity to the departments and ministries concerned to hire candidates with proper education and skills. The Government should, therefore, rationalize its right-sizing plan and bring it to an end within the next few months.
