Defence welfare dept faces officer crunch

Vijay Mohan

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 19

The Defence Services Welfare Department (DSWD), Punjab, is facing an acute shortage of officers at the district level. Against a requirement of 22 officers at the district level, the department is functioning with only 12.

Each district is required to have a post of District Defence Services Welfare Officer (DDSWO), tenable by a retired officer (generally of the rank of lieutenant colonel or equivalent) to deal with welfare issues relating to ex-servicemen.

Sources said the posts of DDSWO in the newly created districts of Mohali, Fazilka, Tarn Taran, Barnala and Pathankot have not even been notified by the state government so far.

Several other districts, including Moga, Muktsar, Ropar, Faridkot, Mansa and Nawanshahar, have also been without DDSWOs for the past some time. This has led to officers posted in other districts shouldering additional charge for vacant posts.

Many districts have ex-servicemen population running into several thousand besides widows and dependants. Pathankot has about 26,000 ex-servicemen. Pathankot and some other districts are on government radar for urban development and this will attract more ex-servicemen to these places.

The reservation policy is one of the factors behind DDSWO posts remaining vacant. Under the rules, a certain number of posts have to be reserved. Since the reservation policy for civil recruitments is not applicable for armed forces, the reserved posts in the DSWD cannot be filled. It is a long and torturous process to get the posts de-reserved.

Consequently, sources said, several posts in the department could not be filled. The issue of getting the posts permanently de-reserved has been taken up with the Centre and the state government, but it continues to hang fire.

Another issue affecting the department is the grade pay of officers re-employed after retirement. Officers of the rank of Lieutenant Colonel/Colonel, who were getting a grade pay of Rs 84000-8700 while in service, are granted grade pay of Just Rs 5,400 by the Punjab Government.

Since grade pay, according to the Sixth Pay Commission, is the sole determinant of an officer’s status, this had put officers at a disadvantage. Besides, it was only recently that the state government, after a protracted struggle, agreed to fix the salary of reemployed defence officers equivalent to their last drawn pay, as is applicable under the rules elsewhere. Earlier their emoluments were lower.