110,000 Russian bureaucrats to be axed in next 3 years, says finance minister Kudrin

CALL it one of the worst nightmares for bureaucrats in Russia. The government of Russia has announced a plan to cut the number of bureaucrats by whopping 110,000 in the next three years, keeping the bureaucrats guessing --- where the axe would fall. The announcement was made on Monday by none other than Russia’s finance minister Aleksei Kudrin who said the move would save the nation more than $1 billion (or roughly Rs 4,600 crore in Indian currencies), media reports in Russia said.
This is in line with President Dmitry Medvedev’s order in June that the number of civil servants would be reduced by 20 percent.

Under the government’s plan, ministries and agencies will have to sack five percent of their staff in 2011 and 2012, and 10 percent in 2013. Quoting a government commission, the finance minister further said that 1,468 government positions were redundant, 263 duplicated each other and 868 required investigations to find out if they were necessary.

Interestingly, during the last three years, 20,000 bureaucrats got added to Russia’s federal government, 60,000 in regional governments and 50,000 at municipality level. Russian media reports further quoted a Statistics Committee report to say that the total number of federal civil servants in the country amounted to 604,600 in July 2010.

2009 batch IAS reportedly commits suicide

IN A tragic incident, a 33-year-old IAS probationary allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in the compound of his official quarter at Moti Daman area. J Rajamurugan, a 2009 batch UT cadre IAS, hails from Tamil Nadu. He was discharging his duties for Panchayat elections held at Daman. He has been at Daman only over a month, and has been living in the official residence with his wife. The police has taken up the case for further investigation.

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