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).
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).
the forces were sleeping. the 6 pay commission award came in2009. the noise or dissent should have taken then , when the growth rate was over 9 percent.today when the country investment rating is junk, droughtin sight, subsidies ballooning and coffers empty the forces are up the wrong pole.the sevice chiefs cannot do much in front of the thick skinned babus , who have mastered the art of fooling ,politcans poor indians and the armed forces . they are hellbent upon defanging the armed forces and soon we will be like thepolice.time for collective bargainning by jawans ncos jcos and officers unions otherwise no results will come . the chiefs and army cdrs get the benefits of orop and they couldnot care whether lt gens now in three catogries get it or not . ambassoderships and high commission postings are given as quid pro for them to muzzle the officers and ranks
ReplyDelete