CM to cut costs with outsourcing, cap on vehicle use

The Basavaraj Bommai administration has set the ball rolling on cost-cutting measures by outsourcing unskilled and semi-skilled jobs while restricting the use of government vehicles to executive officers.

Reducing committed expenditure is a challenge that Bommai, the finance minister, faces as he looks to implement his maiden 2022-23 Budget sized at Rs 2.65 lakh crore.

In the 2021-22 fiscal, the government’s committed expenditure was Rs 1.69 lakh crore out of the total revenue receipts of Rs 1.89 lakh crore. That is 89 per cent, leaving limited space for developmental manoeuvring. Committed expenditure includes salaries, pensions, subsidies and so on.

The government has decided that unskilled and semi-skilled positions such as typists, drivers and Group-D staff will be outsourced.

Bommai has also decided that government vehicles will be provided to officers holding executive positions only -- heads of departments, deputy commissioners, chief executives, district police superintendents, tahsildars and district judges. All other officials can rent vehicles.

These measures will lead to small, but significant savings, according to Karnataka Administrative Reforms Commission-2 chairperson T M Vijay Bhaskar, who is working closely with Bommai to cut costs and make the administration more efficient.

“Except for heads of departments and other senior officials, new vehicles have been stopped. Others have been told to hire vehicles,” Bhaskar told DH. “This will lead to savings on vehicles, fuel and driver’s salary. For example, the cost will be Rs 30,000 for one month which includes the hire, driver and fuel. Otherwise, the driver’s salary itself will be Rs 30,000,” he explained.

The government is known to incur considerable expenditure on vehicles and fuel. For example, the Department of Personnel & Administrative Reforms (DPAR) alone spends more than Rs 77 lakh a year just on fuel to receive and send off state guests. One can imagine the monthly and yearly costs incurred by all the other departments.

The KARC-2 has already submitted three reports to the government with 2,021 recommendations on reforms specific to departments.

One recommendation that expressly aims to reduce costs is the establishment of a Cut Waste Task Force. “This model has been adopted by the Government of Singapore since 2003. Within three years of its inception, it is reported that more than 2,600 suggestions were received and the Cut Waste Panels managed to save over $11.4 million of public resources by the implementation of the accepted suggestions,” the KARC-2 report has stated.

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