Armed Forces bypass MoD, take pay grievances to Manmohan

New Delhi, September 5: In a rare departure, Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta has taken the Armed Forces grievance on the pay panel to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Admiral, who is also Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, met the PM late on Thursday night and brought up ‘core issues’ in the pay commission relating to lowering of pay scales of Defence personnel in comparison to their civilian counterparts.

It is learnt that while Mehta visited the PM to brief him on his recent visits to Japan and South Korea, the issue of anomalies in the pay commission that has led to the ‘lowering of status of Defence officers and men’ was brought up at the end of the meeting.

The Navy chief handed over a detailed representation to the Prime Minister highlighting the perceived anomalies and once again sought the intervention of the Union Cabinet to resolve the issues.

The incident may lead to a little embarrassment for the Defence Ministry that had earlier raised objections over a letter written by the Army Chief to President Pratibha Patil over the pay panel.

“The focus was on the core issues of lowering of status of Defence personnel that will infringe on operational aspects in the field where officers will need to interact with their civil counterparts,” a senior officer said.

The main problem being a lowering of parity of Lt Col and equivalent officers with their counterpart in the paramilitary forces. With the new pay panel norms, central paramilitary officers who were till now ranked lower to Armed Forces officers have been placed in a higher pay band.

On Monday, the three service chiefs had met Defence Minister A K Antony and urged him for the intervention of the Cabinet, rather than a committee to consider its demands on the pay panel report.

In a letter to the Defence Minister, Mehta had said any disruption in the existing parities of pay would lead to serious operational problems for the Armed Forces whenever they would need to work along with paramilitary and civilian officers.

The Armed Forces are angry over the ‘degradation’ of officers of the rank of Lt Cols who have been placed in the Pay Band 3, a grade lower than the PB 4 that their civilian counterparts have been given. They have also demanded that Lt Gen rank officers should be put in the new Pay Band of Higher Administrative Grade (HAG) Plus, in which Director General level officers of civil services and paramilitary have been placed.

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Compulsory Military Service by Rajax on 2008-09-11 21:55:39.41415+05:30
Not only will there be an unstoppable exodus of officers (including Majors and Captains) from the Forces, there will also be a reduction in the number of officers sons, brothers, cousins joining the forces. It has been seen that peer pressure and reputed relatives keep the young officers on the straight and narrow track. These officers are a part of the cream and have a stable value system. I don't know how much damage has already been done. The Armed forces have already lost out on the intangibles like honour and reputation in the VIth Pay Commission. To know the value system of the Forces, all officers who get into IAS, IPS and IFS should be made to undergo cumpulsory training at NDA, IMA and then be made to serve atleast 5 years as an Infantry Officer. In another 30 years we will actually have a shining India which will be a World Power.

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