Why should you go for government jobs?

The next two months, for most of you would be utilized on deciding whether you want to take up a private job or go ahead and try your luck in one of those prestigious government job exams. Well, it is important to be sure of what you want to do before going ahead with it. For those of you, who make the second choice of spending a little more time with your books and writing exams like IBPS, RBI, CDS, Civil Services, AFCAT etc. this blog shall serve as a morale booster.

First of all, you have to be very clear of the fact as to why we are so obsessed with government jobs. To begin with, let’s elucidate a few advantages:

1. JOB SECURITY: In private jobs lay-offs are usual news and you never know when it is your turn irrespective of your performance. Whereas, you can be sure of your job till death in a government office, unless you indulge in something totally unacceptable at the highest level.

2. WORKING HOURS: With the coming up of the new government, there is hardly any difference between the working hours of a ministry and an MNC but still the ones in banks and PSUs are still enjoying a lot of leisure time. But the same cannot be generalised, though governments always compensate you for every extra effort.

3. PERKS AND BENEFITS: Government employees get the maximum number of perks and benefits and they range from medical insurance to your pensions. Also, they have benefits like cheaper educational loans, home loans, personal loans, child care, LTC etc.

4. ALLOWANCES: You will get a smart package once you are in the system but that is not all that you get, it is always topped with Dearness Allowance (DA) and Travel Allowance (TA) to cover all your extra costs. If you are a public sector bank employee, then your DA is revised after every three months and for the central government employee the revision time is six months. As these revisions are mostly upwards, inflation will not be able to harm you as much.

Apart from these two, there are almost a total of 65 types of allowances that are offered to a government employee.

5. PAY COMMISISON: The biggest advantage of getting into a government jobs is the Pay Commission. Let me give you a detailed structure of the pay scale of a government employee – What a person gets at the end of the month depends on these five things, you can call these the components of a government employee’s salary : (a) Basic Pay  (b) Grade Pay (c ) Dearness Allowance  (d) House Rent Allowance (e ) Miscellaneous allowances

Let us take an example to gin greater insight: The Basic Pay of a person with minimum salary of 5200 will be written as: 5200-3%-20200.

Here, 5200 is the basic minimum pay which you will be entitled to as an employee.

3% is the annual increment in basic pay.

20200 is the maximum that a person can receive in the same post.

Apart from this Basic Pay, employees also receive Grade Pay which depends on the class/category of the employee.

The sum of the Basic Pay and Grade Pay is used to calculate Dearness Allowance and other such allowances.

Dearness Allowance – DA is the cost of living allowance given by the government to its employees. It is revised in every quarter / half of a year to compensate for inflation as per the Consumer Price Index.

Similarly, there is HRA called the House Rent Allowance, given to compensate for the rent of the house you are living in and depends on the city of habitation.

Miscellaneous Allowances include: Phone allowance, shift allowance, travel allowance etc.

However, the grade pay concept was abolished by the seventh pay commission and the concept of pay matrix was introduced.

As per this pay matrix, a suitable multiplying factor has been given to calculate the total salary of an employee. So, if your basic pay is 5200 with a grade pay of 1800, then your total pay is 7000.

Coming back to the example (with grade pay),

Basic Pay = 5200-3%-20200

Grade Pay = 1800

This means a total salary of: (Basic + Grade Pay) + DA+ HRA+ MA

Presently, DA is around 110%, HRA = 20%, MA = 40%

Gross monthly salary = (5200+1800) + (7000*1.10) + (7000*0.2) + (7000*0.4) = Rs. 18900/-

{Note : As told earlier, all the allowances are calculated on the sum of Basic and Grade Pay, here, 5200+1800= 7000 and thus, all the allowances will be calculated over 7000}

The net salary in hand will be a little less due to deductions for PF which is 12%, so total will be around 16000 per month.

Also, this salary will change after every six months owing to the revision in DA. After one year of service, the Basic Pay will be 5200*1.03 = 5356/- (3% fixed increase) and this increase will continue until you reach 20200 which is the maximum limit.

However, as per the recommendations of the 7^th Pay Commission and considering the grade pay method, annual revision will be as follows:

Basic Pay= 5200 and as grade pay was 1800, Total = 7000

A multiplying factor of 2.57 has been specified for this grade pay.

So, revised annual salary = (7000)*2.57 = 18,000 + allowances (which remain the same), which gives us a gross total of almost 25,000 per month.

Thus, post seventh Pay Commission, salaries have also increased manifold.

6. SERVING THE NATION: The most important reason is that, while working for the government you are directly or indirectly participating in the nation building. This in itself is a reason big enough to motivate you to work a little extra and be able to give something back to the country.

Let’s consider an example: Assume, you are posted as the manager of any government bank and an economically weak student walks into your bank to get his education loan approved. You know that his paper work is up to the mark; he has all the required proofs but will need special attention because of his background. You of course cannot charge him extra for the services rendered, but if you still decide to help him, (which you should) and get his loan approved, you will be helping a future, engineer, bureaucrat or a business person to grow. You don’t know in what capacity will he work but you surely know that you have made your contribution by investing your time in helping one of the many stakeholders of India’s future. You know that now you can be satisfied of your personal contribution in securing the future of the country.

Another thing that deserves a mention here is the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, imagine yourself to be one of those people responsible for opening bank accounts for those who had not even entered a bank until now, and now you are securing their finances by helping them with their paper work and other formalities involved. True, that it will take a lot of effort from your side but the government will compensate you for that.

In the end, it’s not the zeroes in your bank account but moments like these that count.