NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister on Saturday intervened from New York to avert an unprecedented revolt by the 15-lakh strong Armed Forces, refusing to accept the Sixth Pay Commission pay-scales that put their officers below the equivalent civilian posts of IAS and IPS cadres.
Just a day after the chiefs of the three Services ordered submission of September’s pay bills to the Defence Ministry’s accounts office in old pay-scales, the government set up a 3-member ministerial panel to examine their grievance of the raw deal and Defence Minister A K Antony promised to settle their issue “by Diwali.”
The Services responded to Antony’s assurance, deciding to accept the revised pay scales “for the moment” and submit the pay bills on Monday as per the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee head the panel with Antony and Finance Minister P Chidambaram as its members that will try to sort out the refusal by the three Service chiefs to implement the “discriminatory” pay scales that put their officers at “disadvantage” vis-a-vis the civilian IAS and IPS officers.
“Nothing like that, these are media reports” was Antony’s assertion in Thiruvananthapuram, denying the Services refusing to draw salary in the new pay-scales. Admitting that the government was treating their grievance “seriously,” he told reporters that “all of them would be getting their pay in new scales by Diwali.”
Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor, Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta and Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major had earlier petitioned the government to remove the anomaly of discrimination with the officers of the Armed Forces and threatened not to implement the revised pay-scales on getting no immediate response from the government.
Agencies add: However, the Services have now decided to accept the revised pay scales for the moment and submit their salary bills to the Defence Ministry on Monday.
The three-member committee was constituted following a direction from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is currently abroad.
In Thiruvananthapuram, the Defence Minister said the grievances of defence services personnel over pay scales would be settled soon and they would be “getting their pay in new scales by Diwali.”
“We are taking up the issue seriously. We hope we would be able to find a solution to the issue. All of them would be getting their pay in new scales by Diwali,” Antony told a press meet.
The recommendations of Pay Commission is by and large an improvement from the previous commission. “Still there were some issues, and we would be making serious efforts to solve them,” Antony said.
Asked how he viewed the reports that angry service personnel were declining to draw their pay, he shot back claiming “nothing like that, these are media reports.”
The armed forces had yesterday refused to accept the revised pay scales and did not submit the salary bills for October.
However, the defence forces have now agreed to accept the pay scales with the existing “anomalies”, but would wait for a decision of the Mukherjee committee.
Consequently, all defence personnel would receive new pay along with 40 per cent arrears on October 1.
“All personnel of the armed force will receive the new pay and arrears on October 1. And the draft notification in this regard will be submitted by the three forces to Defence Ministry by Monday morning,” the government said.
The armed forces have been vociferously protesting against the “anomalies” in the CPC notification issued late last month and have been knocking the doors of the top political leadership of the country for resolving the four “core issues” they had with the revised pay scales.
While Antony has personally taken up the cause of the defence personnel and written a letter to both the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister on the issue, the Navy chief too had presented their grievances to the PM earlier this month.
The armed forces have been demanding that the government restore 70 per cent “extant pensionary weightage” to jawans by deferring the CPC recommended 50 per cent weightage on the last salary drawn by them before retirement. This has been accepted in principle.
Defence forces also wanted the government to place the Lieutenant Colonels and their equivalent in the Navy and Air Force in Pay Band-4 (Rs 37,400-67,000), a privilege extended to their civilian counterparts by the CPC, instead of Pay Band-3 (15,600-39,100).
They also wanted the government to restore Grade Pay parity between the middle rung defence officers from Captain to Brigadier with their civilian and paramilitary counterparts.
The last “anomaly” the defence forces point out in CPC is the creation of a new Higher Administrative Grade Plus pay scale in which the civilian and police Director Generals have been placed.
The Services want the government to accord the ‘Plus’ status to their Lieutenant Generals too, who have been placed in a lower Higher Administrative Grade under the CPC.
Source: http://www.khabrein.info/
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