9 Comments

But as the old truism goes, "if you pay peanuts, you attract monkeys" might also occur which means that the most incompetent end up either having responsibility of future generations (as teachers) or being the overlords of citizenry (as police officers). That is a scary prospect.

When my father was a government servant in the BMC (Bombay Municipal Corporation), his employer hired the best and brightest of engineers to run the city. These were mostly toppers, highly educated, very upright, and (mostly) incorruptible. More importantly, they were competent in doing their job. (This old guard met Bob McNamara when he came as head of the World Bank to review the use of WB funding in Mumbai.)

How on earth would you attract a high-competency requirement job - such as being top officials of the MCGB- as BMC is now called - to run a city that is the size of many countries if you hire on the basis of low wages rather than merit/competence?

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I think he is talking about lower grade jobs where skill requirements are very low.

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Even for high paying jobs, they are not able to screen for the most competent candidate. Once they have a pool of candidates who fit the basic eligibility (and that's usually a large pool in India), then there will be interviews and the de facto criteria may be either bribe or political connection.

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Lowering the peon salary is one of the most original and counterintuitive ideas I have read recently. It creates perverse incentives and opportunities for corruption. Once the entitlement is in place, the incumbents will fight tooth and nail to preserve it. Look at OPS.

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When I appeared for interviews at a prestigious central government university, (and I didn't get through), I heard that the bribe rate for the post of an assistant professor was between 20-40 lakhs.

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There you go...

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That's a very sad comment, Prashant. I have no personal experience, but this matches what I have heard from others.

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