Total number of government employees? Nobody knows

Exactly how many employees does the Central government have? The report of the Seventh Pay Commission seems to suggest that nobody is quite sure. The report validated data on personnel received from the various ministries by comparing it with the data from two sources, the expenditure budget of the finance ministry and a census of government employees prepared by the labour ministry's Directorate General of Employment and Training ( DGET). It found glaring inconsistencies in the two in some ministries. The most startling difference, the report points out is in the case of the civil employees of the defence ministry.

While the expenditure budget puts their number at just under 34,500, the DGET places it at nearly 3.8 lakh and the data obtained by the commission at almost 4 lakh. There are also huge differences in the figures for the postal department, the foreign ministry and the commerce ministry.

In general, the commission found that the DGET data was closer to the numbers obtained by the commission though dated, while the expenditure budget numbers were substantially different. The report, therefore, calls for standardization of data on an IT platform to ensure its integrity and availability of consistent data.

The same chapter in the report makes an interesting comparison with the strength of the federal government in the United States to point out that while the US has 668 federal employees per lakh of its population, India has only 139 per lakh, thereby bringing into question the notion that we have an outsized government.



It also makes the point that like in the US, federal government employment in India (excluding the Railways and Posts) is concentrated in a few departments, only more so.

In the US, the defence department accounts for about 34 per cent of the federal personnel and the departments of veteran affairs, homeland security and the treasury between them another 29 per cent. In India, the home ministry accounts for 55 per cent, defence civilians 22 per cent and revenue 5 per cent.

The foreign ministry had the highest per capita expenditure on pay and allowances for personnel at Rs 34.95 lakh in 2012-13, while the home ministry's figure was a mere Rs 2.97 lakh.

One obvious reason was that Group A officers form a much higher proportion of MEA personnel than in most other departments barring some like space, civil aviation, IT and renewable energy. The allowances for postings abroad would clearly be another factor.