Thiruvananthapuram: Thirty per cent of the government staff in Kerala are shirkers! The revelation came from none other than Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan.

Achuthanandan’s plain speak came at the inauguration of the State Revenue Department’s mini civil station in Alappuzha yesterday.

“Thirty per cent of government employees do not do their work and are irresponsible. It’s a pity that this should be the state of affairs when enjoy excellent terms and conditions in government service”, said the Chief Minister.

“I want the District Collectors — heads of district administration — and senior officers to discipline them and extract more work so that we uphold our commitment to the people who have elected us”, he said amid claps from the crowd.

Taking a cue from the audience mood, Achuthanandan said “people should handle the shirkers since what I said now is not my discovery. Service organisation leaders had pointed this out several times”. He said the state government had initiated discussions with staff leaders to improve efficiency and make the civil service more accountable. “One round of discussions is over and we’ll soon resume”, he said.

Apparently referring to attacks on the bureaucracy by ministerial colleagues, Achuthanandan said “they have been saying this in the open because they must be so upset with the officers they deal with”. The statement is no surprise since the major drag on government efficiency has been the lethargic bureaucracy. But when the leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) reiterated a popular notion, it’s a wakeup call to the roughly 500,000 employees in government service.

The staff strength has been increasing with the new Left Government ordering filling of all vacancies. The LDF major criticism, while the in the opposition against the Congress-led government, was the freezing of government appointments.

The last Federal Pay Commission had called for a drastic downsizing of the government staff, which the Federal government did, ignoring the opposition from CPM, the principal ally of the ruling United Progressive Alliance in New Delhi.

However, successive ruling coalitions in Kerala- the Left or the Congress-led United Democratic Front- had failed to follow suit, fearing a backlash from well-entrenched service organisations.

India’s Defence Minister A K Antony, while he was Kerala Chief Minister from 2001 to 2003, ordered belt-tightening measures and froze fresh recruitments to tide over the financial crisis. He stood his ground despite the weeks-long staff agitation but ultimately when he bowed out of office those who celebrated the most were government staff, including those in his party-the Congress.