Moa Jamir
Dimapur | April 2
After decreasing for two consecutive years, the number of employees under the Nagaland Government’s payroll increased to 1.37 lakh as per the latest figure provided by the State’s Finance Department.
However, the increase was propelled by over 134% rise in employment under Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS)/ Centrally Planned Schemes (CPS) etc, while employment under State Departments decreased marginally.
All together there were 1, 37,661 employees as of March 31, 2021 (2022), informed the ‘Explanatory Memorandum (EM) to the Budget for the Year 2023-24’ presented before the legislature during the recently concluded 1st Session of the 14th Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA).
During the last year budget, the total employees stood at 1,23,182 employees as of March 31, 2021. Accordingly, there seems to be a typo regarding the status for current year in the latest budget as the figure is given as ‘No. of Employees as on 31.3.2021.’
Nevertheless, during the two periods, the number of employees increased by 14,479 or by 11.75%.
Out of the total 1,37,661 employees, 1,05,593 were designated as ‘Non-Development’ or under State Departments while 32068 were employed under CSS/CPS) etc.
As per the last year budget, the employment under CSS/CPS) etc was just 13,674, but increased to 32,068, indicating a 134.51% increase.
Meanwhile, the employment under the State Government decreased from 1, 09,508 to 1,05,593 as per the latest figure.
Detailed analysis of earlier budget documents also informed that number of employees showed on increasing trend from 1.23 lakh in 2018-19 to 1.27 lakh in 2020-21, before falling to 1.24 lakh in 2021-22 and 1.23 lakh as of March 31, 2021.
However, it increased to 1.37 lakh as per the latest budget figure.
School Education leads, surges in scheme-based employment
Further analysis of the EM informed that School Education has toppled Civil Police as the biggest employer in the State.
Employment under the School Education surged from 22,402 in 2021 to 39839 in 2022. However, the increase resulted from a significant rise in employment under various central schemes from 4506 in 2021 to 22,902 in 2022.
Incidentally, employment under State Government in the School Education fell from 17,896 to 16937 during the same period.
The Civil Police was the second biggest employer at 25008, though it fell from 25,833 in 2021.
The third biggest employer was the Village Guards with 9730 employees.
The combined workforce of the Public Work Department at 9374 was fourth. The employees comprised of Roads and Bridges -5609; Housing- 2650; Police Engineering Project-268; and Mechanical Engineering- 847.
The Medical, Public Health & Family Welfare was next with 9073 employees, with 559 under CPS/CSS and 8514 under State Government.
As per the ‘Schedule Indicating the Total Expenditure on Salaries and Allowances’ of the Memorandum, a total of Rs 7264.09 crore is estimated to be spent for the 1.37 lakh employees in 2023-24, out of which over Rs 7186.90 crore is expected to be spent from State’s resources while Rs 77.18 crore is expected from CSS/CPS etc.
