We all know that Generals (and equivalents) are excellent marksmen when it comes to shooting themselves in the foot. This is well brought out in the following expose by Biji Cheriyan (Denigration of subordinates) vis-à-vis the 6th CPC imbroglio, which saw Majors (and equivalents) relegated to near oblivion, Lt Gens (and equivalents) “elevated” to HAG+ and Lt Cols (and equivalents) barely making it into PB-4 by the skin of their teeth. It still makes me seethe with anger at having had to spend days travelling by train to attend a one-day meeting somewhere despite being eligible to fly, while a civilian babu, junior to me, flew in and out, just because the top brass in the services were unhappy with Commanders enjoying the same privilege as them. I could have been back at my desk in NHQ in a couple of days instead of wasting a whole week!
But what we did not know (but suspected) was that they were not only experts in saying, “Yes sir! Yes sir! 3 bags full, sir!” but also: “Ji huzoor. Aapke hukum, sarkar!” to babudom. (The navy guys have a song/story about the number of balls on the flags of flag officers). Nothing else explains the abject surrender of the running of the CSD (I) by Army HQ/QMG to the MoD bureaucracy without a whimper of protest. The QMG has been running the show (efficiently or inefficiently is not the issue here) with a fairly high level of satisfaction for half a century. Admittedly, there is plenty room for improvement in many aspects of its operation particularly in the hours of operation, stock levels, product choices, etc.
In fact the Navy has done one better by setting up and running its own INCS (Indian Naval Canteen Service) which from all reports is better run than the CSD. It was a hard fought battle for independence from the CSD/QMG – so is the Navy going to give it up meekly too? I don’t think so! Not with large buildings built exclusively for the INCS in places like Bombay, Cochin and Vizag! Does the MoD possess better (or any) expertise in supply chain logistics or operating a chain of department stores spread across the length and breadth of the country? If so, where was this talent hiding all these years?
From the spate of emails on the subject and the letter from Satbir Singh, it is evident that the serviceman, both serving and retired, has been done in by this ill-considered move. The ill treatment of customers at the hands of local URC managers on the orders of the local station commanders needs to be roundly condemned and the policy rolled back immediately if a conflagration is to be avoided. But is there a Hercules to take on the colossus of babudom? Surely AK Antony did not think of this on his own – if indeed the orders came from him. Imagine a pan India SMART card having only local validity! We might as well go back to the old days of liquor cards and booklets and junk the smart cards.
The attitude of abject surrender was glaringly evident when HQ Southern Command and Army HQ permitted Madame la Presidente to build a post-retirement palace on defence land in Pune. This was scuttled, thanks to the alertness and persistence of the intrepid Poona musketeers (Pathak, Patil & Co) who brought it out in the open. Perhaps similar action is required now. As I said it is the Army’s call: the Navy and the Air Force have to keep in step as they are marching to the beat of the same drum–and the drum major is from the Army, as always. I repeat my prediction–RSIs, DSOIs and golf courses will go the same way!
Cheers,
Carl.
******
The Article by Biji follows :
Denigration of subordinates
In the current conversation about yet another committee for pay/pension issues and discussions about the standard of junior officers, this piece that was posted by 'Pragmatic Euphony' in May 2008may be of interest, for whatever it's worth. The key is in what you ask for and how you state it.
What are the Services Really Asking For?
While good sense tells me to stay out of this debate on pay and commissions, I can't help making a few observations even at the risk of bringing up "I told you so". Ever since I read our proposal to the V CPC in '95, I have been trying to convince people that our approach to the issue is flawed. My hesitation to put these in emails is that while this is good for internal debates, I suspect the way we do things will make the Services look really foolish in front of the public at large. The heavy traffic of emails and blogs suggesting solutions has been very perceptively put by the blogger in "pragmatic euphony' quoting Chesterton," It is not that they don't know what the solution is, what they don't know is the problem". Some of the biggest damage to the image of the Services at the CPCs and outside it for at least 15-20 years have been done by the Service HQs and some senior officers through this continuous propaganda that good youngsters are not joining the Services. This is misleading and false. I can say from first hand experience that the youngsters joining the Navy or NDA today are brighter than their predecessors, albeit with a different perspective on life and the Services. (Of course there is some shortage of officers in the army in particular, and under-subsribing of the last course at NDA. But the reason for it is quite different from the general perception. That's an interesting story I'll keep for another mail) I think this is denigration of the subordinate is being done for 2 reasons, one the normal tendency of incompetent seniors in a hierarchy to pin blame on the subordinates for their own shortcomings and two, to use this pressure tactic as a substitute for making well-reasoned cases to the government for a fair deal to Service personnel. (If an organization is going down-hill, we could debate whether the moorings above have given way or those below are not propping it up, but in military tradition, there should be no doubt as to who takes the credit and the blame).
In the past I would have overlooked this as a harmless sign of the times, but now I feel this 'solution' is a big part of the problem. The public at large, CPCs and others take these statements at face value and regard the Services as an organization of dim-wits for whom any compensation is bonus. Our proposals on pay, personnel issues also often lend credence tothis view. Interestingly, while there is a lot of wailing and grinding of teeth on what the CPC/Bureaucracy/ Govt. did or did not do, nobody has thought it fit to ask the Service HQs, 'What did you ask for?" 'We are special, we need to be looked after, service discipline prevents us from making sensible proposals etc will only take one so far. Pay Structure is not some esoteric subject that only those initiated into the mysteries of it, will understand. It can be fairly straightforward if we keep it so. Some may disagree with me, but I don't think we are 'that special'. We are the same as other government employees, no less, but subject to special conditions of service, and the hardships of the job may be different. There are norms that are applied by pay commissions and others when they determine pay.
If we keep each of these three factors separately when we make our proposals we will not come to such grief. More importantly, the CPCs, the political class and most of all service personnel, will be able to pinpoint where the problem lies, instead of going through a blame-game after each event. I am not sure if the VI CPC has formally changed the norm set by the V CPC, so I'll use that yardstick for reference and hope that my memory is right on the figures. The norm is that for the Organised Gp A Services, All India Services etc( Armed forces officers are bracketed to that),3% should be in the HAG pay grade, 17%in the SAG grade etc. All that we need to have stressed in our proposal was to apply the same yard-stick to us. It will be quite difficult for any CPC, especially one headed by a judge, to refute this argument without seeming discriminatory. It was also the argument used by the Forest service to catch up with IAS & IPS at the V CPC. Whether the SAG grade should be called Capt/ Col/ General is an internal functional requirement of the services. (Of course the fact that military ranks evolved out of operational/ functional necessity is a valid argument, we threw out of the port-hole for the crumbs in AVS report). In one stroke our argument could change from "please indulge us because we are special", to "why are you denying us what is given to everyone else". We are entitled to a pay-structure comparable to our counterparts and I believe we can get that if we state it logically without confusing the picture with conditions of service, hardships and other emotional claptrap.
Conditions of service. These are curtailment of fundamental rights, limits on recourse to legal redressal, whimsical(?) exit policies, job-security related to physical fitness, shorter career span, military ethos as a functional requirement etc. This is what MSP should compensate. MSP should not be a compensation for hardships of service and must be nearly the same for all ranks because the conditions of service are the same for all. We shoot ourselves in the foot when we ask for different rates. The level of Hardship is a matter of time and place, and the task at hand. There are others too in the government like police and para-military who too who have hard jobs. This can be logically addressed only by allowances for sea-duty, field-service, flying,etc. Of course we will have a hard time explaining to people why a pilot or a submariner who's pushing files in the HQs should get the same allowance as a guy who's on the job and actually taking the risk. Ican lay a bet that having different rates of flying allowance would dramatically reduce the shortage of pilots in the AF. (On the lighter side, did you know that Delhi is a hard-posting for the All India Servicewallahs. They get Central deputation allowance to compensate for the 'loss of perks suffered on leaving the parent state').
Some one has also sent me a copy of Service HQs proposal for redressal of issues, if it is genuine; it confirms my earlier suspicion that the RM's meeting with the CPC and the Services would have been an anti-climax. Poor Mr. Antony would be wondering what all the drama was about. I do not know for certain if this is what was actually presented, but if it is, then we are making a laughing stock of ourselves.
1. We seem to be confirming to the govt that Service officers all along had an edge in pay over civil services. Can anyone tell me what the edge is except for a statement to the effect by every Tom, Dick and Tiwary. Fact on ground is that Service officers start drawing pay only in their second year as compared to the civil services. The so-called edge is merely the increment of the year. In fact no compensation is made for the loss of pay, service, pension etc for the first year. More importantly, it would also deny due benefit to family in case of any death/ injury during this period. It was to redress this anomaly that the case for pay/service at IMA/ eqvt was to be taken up. Is this so difficult to state it coherently in English. The Major had an 'edge' equivalent to 2 increments over the Dy Secy because it took him 2 more years to reach that level. The lowering of the Major's pay now is a result of the dilution of the rank at the AVS report, somewhat akin to our asking for getting the 2Lt's pay for the Lt at V CPC.
2. 'Rank pay was carved out of the basic pay giving service officers an edge'. Some turn of phrase this. When I had initially raised the issue of our being short-changed( based on our proposal of course) at the IV CPC, the phrase I had used was ' basic pay was split into pay on running scale and rank pay. If your pay on running scale plus rank pay adds up to the replacement scale of your counterpart, it is called splitting or dividing. If instead of stating things as they are, we want to 'defend our errors as though we are defending our inheritance' (to borrow a phrase from LJ Peter of Peter's Principle fame), we'll end up with such phrases that amuse the reader but serve no purpose other than to convey our intellectual inadequacy. For those who don't remember it, our key demand to correct anomalies after the V CPC was to restore pre-IV CPC equations and re-merger of rank pay with basic pay. I think our original proposal to the IV CPC called it 'Military Service and Rank Pay'. The IV called it rank pay, the VI CPC is calling it MSP. In both cases it has been taken away from the basic pay and is not additional. It would be better not to have it at all.
3. Lt Col/ DIG/Col. The DIG has always ranked between the Lt Col and Col by WOP and pay. In fact even the IV CPC, while generally lowering Service officers' pay, equated the DIG with Director and Lt Col. When the IPS guys objected to this saying the DIG was senior to both Director and Lt Col, both Lt Col and DIG were moved up, the DIG more than the Lt Col, but still below the Col. This has continued. So why are we now proposing to place the Col below the DIG while publicly accusing the CPC of lowering our status. Whilst in service, I remember that on a number of occasions it was taken up that officers should be given the correct designations as per govt. norms, which is that after 13 years of Gp A service you are to be a Director. It was always turned down from above, at Service HQs(not MOD), without reason. I suspect it was a way of visiting one's own inferiority complex on the subordinates. NHQ/Air HQ had kept Cmde /Air Cmde as director, while it should have been Lt Col/ Cdr/ Wg Cdr as director.
4. After a lot of effort, Capts/Gp Capts were made directors. Now everybody is upset that Directors and Cols have been given the same pay by the CPC. How do you argue with the CPC if you have already conveyed the worth of your officers thru inferior designations? At every forum that we speak on the subject we sound like people asking for reservations; and when read in conjunction with the advertisements to join the army we sound as though we are asking for reservations for the creamy layer. Is it any wonder that we are not taken seriously? All that we needed to ask the RM and the CPC was that as per accepted norms, only 80% of officers are to be in the lower pay band, whereas the CPC have placed 98%. Please remedy this. I do not doubt that the VI CPC did a hatchet job and my initial reaction to the report and reaction from the Service HQs was that the CPC has brushed aside substantive proposals from the Services. Now I am not so sure. May be we need to see what was asked for.
Regards
Biji
Biji Cheriyan
Very minor editing has been done.
No comments:
Post a Comment