"Fighter pilot." Whenever I introduced myself that way, while in service and now out of it, I could always espy a sense of awe and admiration.
Yet, I have forever regarded the infantry officer more than anyone else. For, I have been mesmerised by his mettle to command unquestioned obedience from the men he led into battle when everyone knew a likely death lurked round the bend.
But the soldier also knew that his officer would do his utmost to ensure the soldier's safety, and thus reposed unwavering faith in his leadership and followed him in the charge, hollering the war cry.
Infantry officers are moulded out of an extraordinary metal and they form a rare breed. And warriors like them are the ones who make soldiering the noble profession that it is. Where else will you find subordinates ready to live and die for you?
Unlike this sod, the Union government does not apparently think in such mushy terms about the image of its soldiers, sailors and airmen. Otherwise, it would not have compelled the three services chiefs to petition the defence minister to restore the existing parity with those from other central services, with respect to the Sixth Central Pay Commission (SCPC) awards. (A section of the media regrettably painted this as whinging and blackmail by the defence forces. Far from the truth. More than pay, what they are actually pleading is for the restoration of status and honour trampled hitherto by successive governments.)
In response, the government has constituted a panel of three top cabinet ministers to address the discordant subjects (upgrade lieutenant colonel to pay band 4, place lieutenant general in higher administrative grade plus and restore pensionary benefits of personnel below officer rank) highlighted by the chiefs.
The situation report
The forces had earlier raised several disquieting anomalies in the SCPC recommendations, and sought equitable remuneration for the kind of toil they do day in, day out. The government tasked a committee of secretaries to fix it. Given the composition of IAS officers in the committee, only a nincompoop would have expected justice for the servicemen.
The committee should have conjured up adequate pecuniary compensation for the posts in which the officers have to serve long, and also where the deficit of officers was most grave. But instead of smoothening ruffled feathers, its prescription made more hackles to rise. The fear of antagonists sabotaging the hope for obtaining a fair deal had come true.
Worse, the government twisted the knife in at a time when the three services were fighting a rearguard battle to attract talented candidates and to stem the exit of middle- rung officers. Not a soul in the government, evidently, has grasped the acuteness of crisis hobbling the armed forces. Nor has anyone attempted to fathom the depth of their discontentment nor estimate the fallout of the peacetime attrition.
Small wonder then that the services, which lumped the humiliation of its systematic downgrading all these years, were forced to tell the nation that they have had enough. The high and mighty clearly had not heard of the idiom even a worm will turn.
Military vis-a-vis civil service: two universes
Forget the primary role of defending our national territory, waters and air space. Forget fighting the armed inimical elements in Jammu & Kashmir, the Northeast and elsewhere. Now the services are requisitioned to do the salvage job, every day.
When the deluge ravaged Bihar, Assam, UP and Orissa recently, the army, navy and air force had to be marshalled to mount rescue missions. The civil administration was conspicuous by its truancy, making one wonder why crores are spent on such slothful and corrupt bodies, as the army will be SOSed ultimately. Mind you, these bodies are headed by IAS officers, the lot mainly responsible for the rotten state of governance in this country.
Not just natural disasters; they are summoned when the police bungle too. When a party of the anti-Naxal force Greyhounds was ambushed at Chitrakonda in the hills of Malkangiri district of Orissa on June 29, while boating in a reservoir, as the escape routes were heavily mined, the rescue operations had to be supported by air in marginal weather. The air effort and the team of 30 divers were provided by Eastern Naval Command headquartered at Visakhapatnam [Images].
Let me recall a recent news brief in a mainstream English daily as a primer to give you a peek into the contrastive ethos of the military and civilian universes. The vice chief of naval staff lamented that when the navy was called in for rescue and relief in inundated parts of Bihar, formal orders did not come in immediately from the government, and the financial head of the ministry of defence refused to release funds, forcing the navy to use its non-public funds to rush relief teams.
For the babu, the written order dripping officialese is gospel, does not matter if such devotion leads to the drowning of hundreds of citizens!
The serviceman could be excused if he thought that he was being used by the politicians and bureaucrats to conceal their incompetence and to clean up the accumulated mess excreted by their rank misrule.
The army, given the emasculation of the state police, will continue to be employed for internal security -- counter-terrorism, and before long it will be tasked to crush the subnationalist forces and insurrectionists like the Maoists. With body bags set to become an everyday sight, how many parents will be willing to send their sons to this death trap?
Since the very idea of India is at stake, both the polity and policy mavens need to put heads together to pre-empt the portent. But who, ensconced in ivory towers, cares?
The holy warrant of precedence
Why is the State unconscionably shoving its boots on the face of the military? What explains its downhill journey in the warrant of precedence?
Lately, in an article, retired Lt Gen Harwant Singh cited why the defence officers were being hard-bone-by. The bureaucracy, taking advantage of the Congress party's detestation of the military, kept the pot stirred by raising the odds of a military coup, and worked up this fear to emasculate the status of the top echelon, at the cost of the nation's overall strategic disadvantage.
A committee of secretaries revises the warrant of precedence periodically. Gen Harwant Singh writes that as the chief of defence staff in 1981, Gen O P Malhotra raised the issue of downgrading of service officers in the warrant of precedence (this has direct bearing on the pay).
In response, the committee of secretaries recorded, "Military officers were placed unduly high in the old warrant of precedence, presumably as it was considered essential for officers of an army of occupation to be given special status and authority." Mind you, it is not Mirwaiz Umar Farooq but the bureaucrats that called the Indian Army [Images] as an army of occupation!
Of course, Gen Malhotra riposted that the pliant colonial bureaucracy (civil servants and police) was the tool of oppression wielded by the Raj to quell the freedom movement, not the army. In fact, the strike of naval ratings in Bombay on February 18, 1946, that spread to major cities was what signalled to the British that it was time to pack their bags and decamp.
Gen Harwant Singh rightly concluded that it was highly malicious for anyone to decry the Indian Army as an army of occupation.
Once the political class colluded with the bureaucracy, there was no stopping the descent down the warrant of precedence. Perhaps the mandarins still see the military as an army of occupation, which should explain why they are pulling out all the stops to belittle it. Hence their effort to further throttle the services through the SCPC.
Course of action
When I was commissioned into the IAF in 1984, the air force pilot had the highest starting pay among the central government Class I officers. (That is history; the Book has been overwritten several times.)
Smitten by aircraft, bewitched by flying, fascinated by the frisson of foiling gravity, I joined the IAF. The smell of adventure in the air, the prestige associated with the uniform and the decent quality of life it offered were simply inciting appetisers. Oddly, till I was handed my first pay packet, after prevailing three rigorous years at the National Defence Academy and another exacting year at the Air Force Academy, I did not know what my starting pay would be!
Will I embrace the IAF again? I doubt. Gone are those days of chasing quixotic idealism to quench an inner itch. Now lads want to know how much their sweat will swell the bank account. Unless military service is made attractive, few will want to join it. Period.
A decade back, an IAS officer of Maharashtra cadre, a friend, told me he had brought out a paper on the need for officers both military and civilian to bury the hatchet, complement each other, and work together for the larger cause of nation-building instead of cutting the other down to size. Although his supremacist brethren laughed his treatise out of court, I ditto his standpoint.
Though carved out of the same governmental womb, the professions of arms and file-pushing are as different, alas as cold to each other, as the Ambani brothers. So, in the long run, the answer lies in delinking both the pay and stature of the armed forces from their civilian counterparts.
As the nature of jobs, career prospects, hierarchy, attributes, hardships and workplaces are poles apart, the very precept of inter se parity sounds disjointed. Actually it is preposterous to liken a major general with 33 years of service to a joint secretary having 17 years under his belt.
The pyramidal promotion- prospects of the forces and everyone-makes-it framework of the civil services are beyond comparison. Therefore, prudence suggests that instead of indulging in structural tinkering through pay commissions, it makes sense to have a separate pay commission for the defence forces. That is the only durable solution.
As for now, the recently convened ministerial panel must heed the cry of the armed forces and reinstate its stolen status and benefits. It is their due. High morale is the best known force multiplier.
A nation neglects its soldiers at its peril.
M P Anil Kumar is a former fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force.
Heed the cry of the armed forces
Saturday, October 4, 2008
IESM: Press Conference 03 October 2008
"... My Lord, that the day when the Mauryan soldier has to demand his dues or, worse, plead for them, will neither have arrived overnight nor in vain. It will also bode ill for Magadha. For then, on that day, you, My Lord, will have lost all moral sanction to be King! It will also be the beginning of the end of the Mauryan Empire!"
We are very proud that India today is well on its way to progress. As a country we have already begun to be counted in the various world forums. Our rapid progress in the economic field where there has been massive infusion of the foreign funds, has been possible mainly because the country is secure and the foreign investors feel confident to park their assets here. Major contributors for this security are the Indian defence forces. Apart from their main task of defending the country against external threats the defence forces are also involved in a major way in tackling internal disturbances. In addition they are always in the forefront in providing aid during natural calamities like floods, cyclone, earthquakes etc.
The soldiers spend major part of their service in far flung inhospitable areas living under extremely difficult, hazardous and dangerous conditions. A soldier's life can only be experienced, it can never be explained. Their service conditions where they work on a 24X7 work cycle can and should never be compared to other government employees who work on a nine-to-five, work schedule, five days a week. In view of the criticality of their role, it is in national interest that the defence forces are kept in a high state of morale and motivation and their material needs are well looked after. The recent controversy where the genuine demands of the defence services vis-à-vis the 6th Pay Commission report have been overlooked by the committee of bureaucrats has been a very unfortunate and avoidable development. It is hoped that the recently constituted committee of three senior cabinet ministers will remove the anomalies and sanction the emoluments as requested by the defence forces.
As part of their service conditions, majority of military personnel are compulsorily retired when they are still in their thirties and when their financial commitments are at their peek. They get a pittance as pension, which is grossly inadequate for them to sustain themselves. There is no guarantee or even a provision to give them an alternative employment till they reach the age of 60 years. If that cannot be provided, they need to be given enhanced pension till the age of sixty.
Also, with every pay commission the older pensioners get left out and get lower pensions than those who retire after the pay commission implementation. Equity demands that all retirees who have served the country for equal length of service and have attained the same rank should be given the same pension irrespective of their date of retirement. There should thus be 'one-rank-one-pension' for all defence pensioners. This concept of equating pensions of old and new retirees is already prevalent in the case of judges and legislators.
The four demands of the Ex-Servicemen are:
One-rank-one-pension. This is an old standing demand that arouses strong emotions among all the 2.5 million military pensioners.
Resettlement of Ex-Servicemen in alternative government jobs till the age of sixty. This is required to be done through enactment of a Parliamentary Act. Till this materialises all military pensioners be given their last pay drawn as pension till they attain the age of sixty years.
Constituting of an Ex-Servicemen Commission with necessary statutory powers at the national level to look after all the welfare measures of the Ex-Servicemen community. As is the practice for all other similar commissions the Ex-Servicemen Commission be headed by and should have members from the three defence services.
Representation of the Ex-Servicemen on all committees and other such bodies constituted for the purpose of looking into matters affecting the interests of the Ex-Servicemen.
The Indian Ex-Servicemen comprising all retired defence officers, JCOs and men have been expressing their disenchantment with the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations ever since the report was submitted to the government on 24 March 2008. After projecting the above demands to the various decision makers in the country, and not getting any assurance, as a last resort they took their case to the public. The have formed a pan India Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) to project their demands jointly. They first held a rally on 27 April 2008 that covered 61 cities all over India. Next they observed a token hunger strike on 27 May where a synchronised action was carried out over 300 cities in the country. This was followed by yet another rally on 6 July 2008, which too was held all over India. A relay hunger strike is planned from 20 October 2008 onwards if the main demand of one-rank-one-pension is not accepted by the government before that date.
Maj Gen Satbir Singh, SM
Vice Chairman
Indian Ex Servicemen Movement
JUSTICE FOR DEFENCE SERVICES PERSONNEL: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR MEMBERS OF THE PARLIAMENT
01. Why One Rank One Pension (OROP) which was earlier recommended to be sanctioned by the Parliamentary Committee in 2004 not been accepted?
02. Defence Personnel are compulsorily retired at the age of 35-45 years. Why not an assured Second Career till the age of 60 years as in the case of other Govt employees is granted to them through the Act of Parliament?
03. Why Defence Personnel are not given the last pay drawn till the age of 60 years to compensate compulsory retirement at the ages 35-45 years.
04. Why the youth no longer is opting for a career in the Defence Services?
05. Why a Civil Servant (IAS) with 14 years of service gets almost double the salary than a Defence Officer of 14 years of service?
06. Why representation of Defence Services on 6th Pay Commission and Review Committee were denied? As per the then Chairman COSC Admiral Arun Parkash, in Apr 2006, the then Raksha Mantri Shri Pranab Mukherjee had agreed in principle to the nomination of service representative on the 6th Pay Commission. Why this decision was later reversed?
07. Why your Jawan gets Rs 950 less than even the Police Constable? Why a Subedar Major will get Rs 25 lacs less than a CRPF Inspector? Why a Defence Officer in 30 years span of service gets Rs 30 lacs less than his counter part in the civil?
08. Why the year wise edge in emoluments of Defence Service personnel is not ensured over other civil services?
09. Why anomalies of 4th & 5th Pay Commission have not been addressed by the 6th Pay Commission?
10.Why Ex-Servicemen Commission with legal powers consisting of members only from ESM & ESM widows has not been constituted?
11.Why the Defence Services "Order of Precedence" been lowered as compared to other services? Why should it not be restored what existed on 26 Jan 1950?
12. The information received that RTI reveals that while the Pay & Allowances of IAS, IPS, IFS were increased after the 4th Pay Commission recommendations, the pay & allowances of Defence Services were not increased. Why a CBI inquiry or GOM committee not be constituted to probe the facts of the whole case and the anomalies addressed?
13. The concept of civilian control over the Defence Forces implies the control by the elected representations and not by the bureaucracy. Why is the Govt dealing with the Military through the bureaucracy which in any case is biased towards it and not directly?
14. Do we have realistic assessment of morale and motivation of our Defence Forces?
15. Are we as a Nation heading to pre- 1962 disaster situation?
Date Press Release: : 03 Oct 2008
Dear Members of the Press,
We are thankful to the members of the Press for attending the Press Conference at Press Club of India on 03 Oct 2008 at 11 AM in large numbers.
We are attaching the Press Release and Questionnaire for the Hon'ble members of the Parliament regarding the Injustices done to the Defence Services personnel both serving and the veterans. Through the press, we appeal to the Hon'ble Members of Parliament to raise these questions in the Parliament in the coming session. The issues of Defence Forces personnel are of great National importance and needs to discussed at the highest National Body, that is, our Parliament & remedial measures taken on priority to address all the issues disturbing the Armed Forces.
May we request you to kindly suitably cover the Press Release in your esteemed News Paper/ TV channel.
Jai Hind
With regards,
Maj Gen Satbir Singh, SM
Vice Chairnman
Indian Ex Servicemen Movement
We are very proud that India today is well on its way to progress. As a country we have already begun to be counted in the various world forums. Our rapid progress in the economic field where there has been massive infusion of the foreign funds, has been possible mainly because the country is secure and the foreign investors feel confident to park their assets here. Major contributors for this security are the Indian defence forces. Apart from their main task of defending the country against external threats the defence forces are also involved in a major way in tackling internal disturbances. In addition they are always in the forefront in providing aid during natural calamities like floods, cyclone, earthquakes etc.
The soldiers spend major part of their service in far flung inhospitable areas living under extremely difficult, hazardous and dangerous conditions. A soldier's life can only be experienced, it can never be explained. Their service conditions where they work on a 24X7 work cycle can and should never be compared to other government employees who work on a nine-to-five, work schedule, five days a week. In view of the criticality of their role, it is in national interest that the defence forces are kept in a high state of morale and motivation and their material needs are well looked after. The recent controversy where the genuine demands of the defence services vis-à-vis the 6th Pay Commission report have been overlooked by the committee of bureaucrats has been a very unfortunate and avoidable development. It is hoped that the recently constituted committee of three senior cabinet ministers will remove the anomalies and sanction the emoluments as requested by the defence forces.
As part of their service conditions, majority of military personnel are compulsorily retired when they are still in their thirties and when their financial commitments are at their peek. They get a pittance as pension, which is grossly inadequate for them to sustain themselves. There is no guarantee or even a provision to give them an alternative employment till they reach the age of 60 years. If that cannot be provided, they need to be given enhanced pension till the age of sixty.
Also, with every pay commission the older pensioners get left out and get lower pensions than those who retire after the pay commission implementation. Equity demands that all retirees who have served the country for equal length of service and have attained the same rank should be given the same pension irrespective of their date of retirement. There should thus be 'one-rank-one-pension' for all defence pensioners. This concept of equating pensions of old and new retirees is already prevalent in the case of judges and legislators.
The four demands of the Ex-Servicemen are:
The Indian Ex-Servicemen comprising all retired defence officers, JCOs and men have been expressing their disenchantment with the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations ever since the report was submitted to the government on 24 March 2008. After projecting the above demands to the various decision makers in the country, and not getting any assurance, as a last resort they took their case to the public. The have formed a pan India Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) to project their demands jointly. They first held a rally on 27 April 2008 that covered 61 cities all over India. Next they observed a token hunger strike on 27 May where a synchronised action was carried out over 300 cities in the country. This was followed by yet another rally on 6 July 2008, which too was held all over India. A relay hunger strike is planned from 20 October 2008 onwards if the main demand of one-rank-one-pension is not accepted by the government before that date.
Maj Gen Satbir Singh, SM
Vice Chairman
Indian Ex Servicemen Movement
JUSTICE FOR DEFENCE SERVICES PERSONNEL: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR MEMBERS OF THE PARLIAMENT
01. Why One Rank One Pension (OROP) which was earlier recommended to be sanctioned by the Parliamentary Committee in 2004 not been accepted?
02. Defence Personnel are compulsorily retired at the age of 35-45 years. Why not an assured Second Career till the age of 60 years as in the case of other Govt employees is granted to them through the Act of Parliament?
03. Why Defence Personnel are not given the last pay drawn till the age of 60 years to compensate compulsory retirement at the ages 35-45 years.
04. Why the youth no longer is opting for a career in the Defence Services?
05. Why a Civil Servant (IAS) with 14 years of service gets almost double the salary than a Defence Officer of 14 years of service?
06. Why representation of Defence Services on 6th Pay Commission and Review Committee were denied? As per the then Chairman COSC Admiral Arun Parkash, in Apr 2006, the then Raksha Mantri Shri Pranab Mukherjee had agreed in principle to the nomination of service representative on the 6th Pay Commission. Why this decision was later reversed?
07. Why your Jawan gets Rs 950 less than even the Police Constable? Why a Subedar Major will get Rs 25 lacs less than a CRPF Inspector? Why a Defence Officer in 30 years span of service gets Rs 30 lacs less than his counter part in the civil?
08. Why the year wise edge in emoluments of Defence Service personnel is not ensured over other civil services?
09. Why anomalies of 4th & 5th Pay Commission have not been addressed by the 6th Pay Commission?
10.Why Ex-Servicemen Commission with legal powers consisting of members only from ESM & ESM widows has not been constituted?
11.Why the Defence Services "Order of Precedence" been lowered as compared to other services? Why should it not be restored what existed on 26 Jan 1950?
12. The information received that RTI reveals that while the Pay & Allowances of IAS, IPS, IFS were increased after the 4th Pay Commission recommendations, the pay & allowances of Defence Services were not increased. Why a CBI inquiry or GOM committee not be constituted to probe the facts of the whole case and the anomalies addressed?
13. The concept of civilian control over the Defence Forces implies the control by the elected representations and not by the bureaucracy. Why is the Govt dealing with the Military through the bureaucracy which in any case is biased towards it and not directly?
14. Do we have realistic assessment of morale and motivation of our Defence Forces?
15. Are we as a Nation heading to pre- 1962 disaster situation?
Date Press Release: : 03 Oct 2008
Dear Members of the Press,
We are thankful to the members of the Press for attending the Press Conference at Press Club of India on 03 Oct 2008 at 11 AM in large numbers.
We are attaching the Press Release and Questionnaire for the Hon'ble members of the Parliament regarding the Injustices done to the Defence Services personnel both serving and the veterans. Through the press, we appeal to the Hon'ble Members of Parliament to raise these questions in the Parliament in the coming session. The issues of Defence Forces personnel are of great National importance and needs to discussed at the highest National Body, that is, our Parliament & remedial measures taken on priority to address all the issues disturbing the Armed Forces.
May we request you to kindly suitably cover the Press Release in your esteemed News Paper/ TV channel.
Jai Hind
With regards,
Maj Gen Satbir Singh, SM
Vice Chairnman
Indian Ex Servicemen Movement
Thursday, October 2, 2008
SCPC: Flaws in traditional comparison behind lowering status
Chandigarh, October 1
As the status of Lieutenant-Colonel and Lieutenant-General vis-à-vis their civilian counterparts continues to hang fire, it appears that incorrect representation of past scales under comparative tables in the Sixth Pay Commission’s report may be responsible for degradation of status and pay of officers.
Sources reveal that the pay panel in its report had formulated a historical tabulation of scales of military and civil officers in which the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel has been shown against the junior administrative grade (JAG) instead of the non-functional selection grade (NFSG) of the civil services.
The pay of a Lt-Col was shown as Rs 1700-900 while that of the NFSG was shown as Rs 2000-2250 under the table for the 3rd pay panel. Experts, however, say that there were three NFSG grades in the 3rd pay panel, out of which only the highest one has been “conveniently” reproduced in the table. The two other NFSG grades were Rs 1650-1800 and Rs 1800-2000 and the Lt-Col’s grade was placed between them.
Both these grades were shifted to Rs 14,300-18,300 by the 5th pay commission, while Lt-Col was granted Rs 15,100-18,700. The sixth pay panel, however, placed Lt-Col along with JAG in the band of Rs 15,600-39,100 instead of NFSG (Rs 37,400-67,000) in which the erstwhile closest counterparts of Lt-Col were shifted.
Another anomaly reflected in the tables relates to the rank of Captain, which in turn had a cascading effect on higher ranks, sources said. While the rank of a Captain has been shown against senior time scale (STS) in the 3rd pay panel tables, it has been shown against junior time scale (JTS) bunched with Lieutenant under the FPC tables. Experts point out that there was no recommendation of down gradation of Captain from STS level by the fourth or the fifth pay panels, and the same is a self-created equation by the sixth pay panel with no official back-up.
The non-addition of rank pay into basic pay of service officers for equivalence purposes is also refuted by some experts. Maj Navdeep Singh, author of a book on military benefits, says that rank pay was carved out of basic pay by the first pay panel and it had recommended the same integrated scale of Rs 2,300-5,100 for 2nd-Lieutenant to Brigadier, with rank pay as the differentiating factor.
To say that rank pay is not to be added for status would mean that all ranks from up to Brigadier enjoy the same status. A group of officers set up by the government after the 5th pay commission had recommended that an Army officer in his 14th year of service should have parity with an NFSG officer of the civil services. Several retired officers also point out that special army instructions issued by the ministry of defence clarify that rank pay is a part of basic pay for all purposes.
Flaws in traditional comparison behind lowering status
Comment: The 5th Pay Commission, the Army Instructions stipulated that Rank Pay is Part of Basic Pay, the Bureaucrats accordingly deducted Rank Pay from Basic Pay and then added it to the resultant diminished Basic Pay. With one stroke the Lt cols were left high and dry. This anomaly has till date not been resolved, except for one Officer who won the court case and got all his legal entitlements. Now the case rests in the Bureaucracy and Judiuciary. Can Maj Navdeep Singh enlighten us on this issue. Is it dead or alive?
As the status of Lieutenant-Colonel and Lieutenant-General vis-à-vis their civilian counterparts continues to hang fire, it appears that incorrect representation of past scales under comparative tables in the Sixth Pay Commission’s report may be responsible for degradation of status and pay of officers.
Sources reveal that the pay panel in its report had formulated a historical tabulation of scales of military and civil officers in which the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel has been shown against the junior administrative grade (JAG) instead of the non-functional selection grade (NFSG) of the civil services.
The pay of a Lt-Col was shown as Rs 1700-900 while that of the NFSG was shown as Rs 2000-2250 under the table for the 3rd pay panel. Experts, however, say that there were three NFSG grades in the 3rd pay panel, out of which only the highest one has been “conveniently” reproduced in the table. The two other NFSG grades were Rs 1650-1800 and Rs 1800-2000 and the Lt-Col’s grade was placed between them.
Both these grades were shifted to Rs 14,300-18,300 by the 5th pay commission, while Lt-Col was granted Rs 15,100-18,700. The sixth pay panel, however, placed Lt-Col along with JAG in the band of Rs 15,600-39,100 instead of NFSG (Rs 37,400-67,000) in which the erstwhile closest counterparts of Lt-Col were shifted.
Another anomaly reflected in the tables relates to the rank of Captain, which in turn had a cascading effect on higher ranks, sources said. While the rank of a Captain has been shown against senior time scale (STS) in the 3rd pay panel tables, it has been shown against junior time scale (JTS) bunched with Lieutenant under the FPC tables. Experts point out that there was no recommendation of down gradation of Captain from STS level by the fourth or the fifth pay panels, and the same is a self-created equation by the sixth pay panel with no official back-up.
The non-addition of rank pay into basic pay of service officers for equivalence purposes is also refuted by some experts. Maj Navdeep Singh, author of a book on military benefits, says that rank pay was carved out of basic pay by the first pay panel and it had recommended the same integrated scale of Rs 2,300-5,100 for 2nd-Lieutenant to Brigadier, with rank pay as the differentiating factor.
To say that rank pay is not to be added for status would mean that all ranks from up to Brigadier enjoy the same status. A group of officers set up by the government after the 5th pay commission had recommended that an Army officer in his 14th year of service should have parity with an NFSG officer of the civil services. Several retired officers also point out that special army instructions issued by the ministry of defence clarify that rank pay is a part of basic pay for all purposes.
Flaws in traditional comparison behind lowering status
Comment: The 5th Pay Commission, the Army Instructions stipulated that Rank Pay is Part of Basic Pay, the Bureaucrats accordingly deducted Rank Pay from Basic Pay and then added it to the resultant diminished Basic Pay. With one stroke the Lt cols were left high and dry. This anomaly has till date not been resolved, except for one Officer who won the court case and got all his legal entitlements. Now the case rests in the Bureaucracy and Judiuciary. Can Maj Navdeep Singh enlighten us on this issue. Is it dead or alive?
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