Friday, September 12, 2008

Cabinet may take up Services' pay grievances

Wed, Sep 10 02:52 AM
Grievances of the Armed Forces about the 'lowering of status of defence officers and men' in the new pay panel are likely to be taken up at a meeting of the Union Cabinet on Thursday. Sources said the Cabinet was set to discuss the issue after chiefs of the Armed Forces insisted that the matter be resolved at the top political decision-making level in a letter to the Defence Minister.

While a representation on the issue has been forwarded to the Defence Ministry and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the forces have firmed up a detailed note, bringing out seven major points that need to be addressed to keep the parity of Armed Forces personnel with their civilian counterparts.

The disparity of pay bands, where the director rank has been moved into Pay Band 4 but the Lt Col and equivalent rank has been retained in Pay Band 3, is a major issue of contention. The Armed Forces are contending that while earlier, a Lt Col got the same pay as an IAS director and Rs 800 more than a non-IAS director, after the new pay panel, he gets Rs 14,000 less than an IAS director and Rs 11,000 less than a non-IAS director.
Cabinet may take up Services' pay grievances

Questions to be resolved:
1. Why One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme, that was earlier recommended to be sanctioned by the Parliamentary Committee in 2004 has not been approved yet ?
2. Over 95% of defence personnel are compulsorily retired at the age of 35-45. Why an assured second career till the age of 60 years (as in the case of other government employees) is not granted to them through an act of Parliament ?
3. Why a civil servant (IAS) with 14 years of service gets almost double the salary compared to his defence counterpart with the same amount of experience ?
4. Why does a jawan get Rs 950 less than a police constable ?
5. Why does a defence officer after putting in 30 years of service get Rs 30 lakh less than his counter part in the civil services with same service period ?
6. Why is the year- wise edge in emoluments of defence personnel not ensured over other civil services ?
7. The concept of civilian control over the defence forces implies the control by elected representatives and not by bureaucracy. Why is the government dealing with the military through the bureaucracy, which in any case, is biased ?

Cdr Harpaul Singh (IN) Veteran
Chairman of Indian Navy Foundation, Canada
Posted by on
Labels: , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Disclaimer

The contents posted on these Blogs are personal reflections of the Bloggers and do not reflect the views of the "Report My Signal- Blog" Team.
Neither the "Report my Signal -Blogs" nor the individual authors of any material on these Blogs accept responsibility for any loss or damage caused (including through negligence), which anyone may directly or indirectly suffer arising out of use of or reliance on information contained in or accessed through these Blogs.
This is not an official Blog site. This forum is run by team of ex- Corps of Signals, Indian Army, Veterans for social networking of Indian Defence Veterans. It is not affiliated to or officially recognized by the MoD or the AHQ, Director General of Signals or Government/ State.
The Report My Signal Forum will endeavor to edit/ delete any material which is considered offensive, undesirable and or impinging on national security. The Blog Team is very conscious of potentially questionable content. However, where a content is posted and between posting and removal from the blog in such cases, the act does not reflect either the condoning or endorsing of said material by the Team.
Blog Moderator: Lt Col James Kanagaraj (Retd)

Resources