Siding with
the armed forces, Defence Minister AK Antony has written a strongly worded
letter to the Prime Minister to give representation to the armed forces in the
panel on pay parity.
Earlier three
services chiefs had written to Antony registering a dissent. Their objection
has been to the absence of a military representative in the panel set up by the
Prime Minister to look into demands of the forces for pay parity with civil servants.
The six-member
committee of secretaries was set up by the PM on July 16 and is headed by the
Cabinet Secretary and has other senior IAS officers as members. The committee
has been asked to submit its report by August 8.
However, the
Navy Chief said in his letter to the Defence Minister that their demands cannot
be satisfactorily addressed till the panel has members of Armed Forces. The
Armed Forces have been demanding fixing of six core anomalies in the 6th Pay Commission. The main demand is
granting of Non-functional upgrade in the pay to the armed forces on the lines
of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).
For instance
if an IAS officer from a particular batch gets placed in the Joint Secretary
grade in 2012, all Group A organised officers in batches two years previous
would automatically get the pay and allowance equivalent to the his batch,
irrespective of the post and place they are serving in.
“Unlike IAS
where all civil servants retire as Additional Secretaries, the hierarchy
structure in the armed forces is very steep. Not more than 20 percent of the
people make it beyond the rank of Brigadiers.
“Our demand is
that even if you are not promoted to the other post, the officer should be
granted the pay structure as per year of service,” sources said.
Many of the
uniform people found it quite ironical that the issue of parity of armed forces vis-à-vis IAS will be
represented and decided by the IAS officers themselves.
Earlier on
June 25, the Defence Minister had also written to the Prime Minister saying
there was "growing discontentment among the services personnel due to the
anomalies in fixation of payment and salaries." Making a case for
accepting the demands of serving and retired soldiers, Antony pointed out that
the service personnel, ex-servicemen and family pensioners were "equally
agitated" over anomalies in salaries and suggested that "corrective
action" be taken or "things may take a bad turn." The armed forces have been demanding one rank one pension for retired personnel
and one rank one pay for those still serving. They are also pushing for fixing
rank pay and fixing pay structure for jawans and junior commissioned officers
(JCOs).
Dear Friends,
I saw repeated efforts being made to broadcast Anthony's letter to
PM. Somehow it did not work. Here we are, the blogshot URL and the item in question are given
below. Meanwhile, everyone is going to town to say that the 'Govt' has
rejected the demand by the three Chiefs. However, the source has not been named
or shown.
Regards........ K K Punchhi.
That leads us to another matter which may not require the intervention of Hon'ble Prime Minister at all. Is the Hon'ble Defence Minister contemplating the withdrawal of the application by his ministry which seeks the withdrawal of the order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court regarding the IV CPC Rank Pay case?
ReplyDeleteWHAT A JOKE . IN FREE INDIA ARMY HAS NO FREEDOM OF SPEECH, BUT NOW NO FREEDOM OF REPRESENTATION IN PAY COMMITTEE .WHO KNOWS WOES OF ARMY BABUS SITTING IN AC.. ARMY CANNOT BE MADE SLAVE IN FREE INDIA. JAGO & KINDLY DO NOT DOWNGRADE ARMY MORAL & STAUTS . ARMY IS YOUR ULTIMATE SAVIOR NEXT TO GOD.WOH KHUN BAHA TE HAI TAKKII AAP KA PASINA BHI NA BAHE JAI HIND
ReplyDeleteThe ignorance of civil servants in India about military matters is so complete..........that we may accept it as a self-evident and incontrovertible fact, said H.M. Patel quoted in USI Journal of July 1954, Volume LXXXIV, Number 356,page 249.
ReplyDeleteNothing has changed.
ndtv.com also carried an item quoting "sources" that because the Armed Forces did not have representation in the Sixth Central Pay Commission, how could they demand representation in the pay panel for resolving anomalies. Using their own convoluted logic typical of bureaucrats, because none of the bureaucrats on the panel were on the SCPC, so they should recuse themselves. Do they have the integrity to do so. I quote JF Kennedy in presuming that the sources have "great capacity to convince themselves of the complete righteousness of their particular cause."
ReplyDeleteThis discrimination in status is very painful. We don't want money but we should be equal in status with our civil counterparts. I am a serving officer, I really feel, why i joined army, to get insulted from bureaucrats.
ReplyDeleteI really repent my decision. Serving the motherland was the motivation but such an insult every now and then is killing my morale.