New Delhi January 1
The government has accepted, albeit with certain conditions, two out of four core demands raised by the defence personnel who were peeved over glaring anomalies in their salary structure and lowering of status by the Sixth Pay Commission. However, several questions have been left unanswered, as new calculations and claims are set to emerge.
Meanwhile, another “high-powered” committee has also been formed to iron out the issues of command, control and status of the forces vis-à-vis their civilian and paramilitary counterparts. The defence secretary will head this committee.
A note from the Prime Minister’s office sent to the Ministry of Defence two days ago, indicates only at a ‘partial victory’ for the forces who ‘battled’ it out with the bureaucracy over pay-related matters in the past six months or so. Separately, besides the four core demands, the government has said the armed forces, in future, will have a pay commission of their own. It will be de-linked from the civilian pay commission. This commission will be set up ten years later and not now.
Notably, the demand for placing Lieutenant Colonels and their counterparts in the Navy and the Air force in the pay band 4 has been okayed. However, the grade pay of Rs 8,000 — instead of Rs 8,800, which was sought — will be given to them. Earlier, the Lieut-Colonels were in pay-band 3. It would mean an increase of Rs 10,000-12,000 per month over the existing pay scales for Lieut-Colonels. However, there’s a rider. The pay-band 4 status and
grade pay would be accorded to only those Lieutenant Colonels and their equal ranks in Navy and Air force, who were performing a combat role or were ready-for-combat duties. Sources said the armed forces have no glossary of ‘combat’ and ‘ready for combat’ posts. It has three kinds of postings - field, modified field and peacetime. A fresh order will probably have to be issued to notify the post details.
Also lieutenant colonels, on deputation to other services, would receive the pay band 4 status only when they return to their parent service. Sources said the service headquarters will put up a detail proposal before the high- powered committee on the issue of status. The second demand to be accepted is the continuation of 70 per cent pensionary weightage for jawans till the government implements the pay panel’s recommendation, allowing retired armed forces personnel a lateral entry into paramilitary and central police forces. This is the only demand that has been accepted in toto.
Interestingly, PMO’s communication is silent on the two other core demands of the armed forces: Placing the Lieutenant Generals in the higher administrative grade plus pay scales at a par with DGP’s in a state and bringing grade pay of officers from Captains to Brigadiers on par with their civilian counterparts.
The nitty-gritty of properly implementing the new orders would have to be worked out in concert with the services headquarters.
After the union cabinet decided to implement the sixth pay commission in September last year, the services’ chiefs had urged a political decision on the issues of parity raised by them. In an unprecedented move, the forces refused to implement the cabinet decision. Consequently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to set up the Mukherjee committee, which had defence minister AK Antony and home minister P Chidambaram as members. The committee submitted its report to the PM in mid-December.
