Increasing feeling of alienation among government employees in India

Growth is the biggest imperative of a developing society. As a consequence of technological revolution and globalization; India is faced with challenges, which are of great significance when looked from development angle. However, nowadays when the stress is on development, economic growth and technological advancement, government organizations which have an important role to play in taking the country forward are under severe criticism from all quarters. Employees do not show interest in their work and many shirk responsibilities and show negative behaviour. Performance may suffer considerably due to strikes, agitation and apathy towards work - a manifestation of feeling alienation from work. The present paper aims to analyze reasons behind the growing feeling of alienation among government employees. In this study, Mottaz's ‘work alienation scale’ was administered on 200 employees of central government departments in NCR (National Capital Region) and further data was collected through personal interviews. It was found that a sizeable proportion of population experiences moderate to high level of alienation, which needs to be monitored and controlled by identifying contributing sectors and undertaking remedial measures.