Appeal to Member of Parliament

Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal,

I write this on behalf of the retired defence personnel and their families, who form the constituency you as Member of Parliament represent. As a Minister of State for Finance, you would have heard the story projected by the 6th Pay Commission. I would like to apprise you of the way the Commission has dealt with us.

Successive pay Commissions have been dealing an unfair hand to the defence services. In that sense 6th Pay Commission has merely followed the same line. Not only has pay and allowances been repeatedly axed, compared to civil services, even the status of defence officers has been systematically, repeatedly and by design, lowered over the years.

No one from defence services was taken on the 5th Pay Commission. Not even on the staff of nearly 150 assembled to assist the Commission to work out the nitty-gritty of the report. Even when a Committee of Secretaries was constituted to examine the recommendations of this Commission, your ministry declined to take a member from the armed forces, but took one from the police! It is no better now. We wonder if the Chiefs will agree to this charade!

You may be aware that a maj-gen holds rank higher than a brigadier and yet the 5th Pay Commission gave brigadier higher pension than a maj-gen. We spent three years in the Punjab High Court, to get this distortion corrected and when corrected, the government has gone to the Supreme Court to sustain this absurd position. If the 4th Pay Commission gave rank pay to officers ( upto the rank of brigadiers ) the government deducted the same amount from the basic pay of concerned officers. Instead of accepting the mischief and correcting this injustice with good grace, the case has been placed before the Apex Court where again, instead of a general order, individual cases appear to be under consideration. Since then a large number of affected officers have died and some others have resigned themselves to this callous attitude of the government.

When lowering the status of army officers had become a practice, the Chairman Chiefs of Staff committee in 1981, lodged a strong protest with the RM. Babus named the Indian army, an ‘army of occupation’ to justify lowering its status. 6th Pay Commission has further lowered the status of officers, other than those of service chiefs and army commanders, through the medium of pay etc. The divide and rule policy is fraught with grave consequences.

‘One rank- one pension,’ demand of defence retirees is essentially because of their peculiar service conditions. Almost all political parties supported this and some included it in their election manifestoes. Besides some PMs, the President of India, addressing the joint session of Parliament had committed to implementing, ‘one rank- one pension.’ This demand has been given a final burial by the 6th Pay Commission.

A Committee of secretaries has been constituted by your ministry to look into the military’s case. Here a word on this ultimate solution the government seems to find in ‘committee of secretaries’ may be helpful. A committee of secretaries was formed to select an engine, between two contenders, for the Vijanta tank. During its deliberations it surfaced that none of them even knew the difference between a crankshaft and camshaft of an engine! So why have a committee whose knowledge of hardships of military service and the risk factor is near zero! We do expect you to put an officer from the armed forces on this committee.

In the military, early retirement is necessary to keep a youthful profile, extremely limited promotions is a service imperative and travails are innumerable and inherent to the service. All of these have to be compensated. No other service stands comparison with military service in this regard, so why apply a common yard stick.

In every democracy, military service is considered a special calling and treated as such. In the US the maximum pension admissible to a civil employee, under the Federal System, is 60 percent of average of last three years pay. In the military it is 75 percent of the last pay drawn. The life time retirement ( discounted ) benefits of a soldier after 20 years service, in the nineties, was $ 89,500/ while that of a policemen and federal service employee was $ 24,000/ and 18,300/. Iraq war has resulted in further increase in emoluments of soldiers. In the US where an average citizen is most conscious and demanding of his rights and privileges, the nation considers it the soldier’s right and privilege to better pay and perks for a hard, risk filled life and a truncated career. So is the case with most other democracies. Why is it so different in India!

In India the sum total of pay ( as also pension ) and allowances of a civilian employee, across the full length of service, works out to far more than what those in uniform get over their full span of service/pension. While the distortions brought about by the 6th Pay Commission are far too many to list, for one, why keep Military Service Pay outside the basic pay (because it is not an allowance specific to any area or condition ) and introduce such a large disparity between officers and troops in this case. Why cold shoulder middle rung officers! Such glaring anomalies and distortions have to be addressed.

Perhaps we have reached a state where few want to join the defence services. Our military academies are running well short of capacities. Poor response to entry into engineering services in the army, has brought the Training Institute for them under threat of closure. When very few want to join the defence services and those already inside want to quit, government is unconcerned and conscription is not an option as our RM said a few days ago, why not outsource National Security! There are many in your ministry who would see merit in this proposal and find it financially a cheaper option!

We are aware of your outburst against what you termed as ‘fauji raj,’ but hopefully, that was not the result of a deep seated bias but an aberration and your sympathies and support continue to be with defence services. We do have high hopes in you and that using your good offices, you will see that justice is done and an officer from the forces is made a member of committee of secretaries.

Lt Gen Harwant Singh (Retd)