Govt fails to mollify armed forces over pay hike

Last-ditch attempts by the UPA government to mollify the fuming armed forces over the "paltry" hikes recommended for them by the 6th Pay Commission have failed to cut much ice.

Top sources say navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta, in his capacity as the chairman of the chiefs of staff committee (CoSC), has now written to defence minister A K Antony, cabinet secretary K M Chandrashekar and defence secretary Vijay Singh that the armed forces "still have some misgivings on certain issues".

This despite the empowered committee of secretaries (CoS), headed by Chandrashekar, suggesting nearly 15% hike in salaries of armed forces personnel over what has been recommended by the pay commission, along with doubling of the proposed Rs 1,000 Military Service Pay (MSP) for soldiers to Rs 2,000 per month.

In his letter, after detailed discussions with army chief General Deepak Kapoor and IAF chief Air Chief Marshal F H Major in the CoSC, Admiral Mehta stressed that some "important course corrections" were needed to "raise the satisfaction level" of the armed forces, which could be done at "minimal cost to the exchequer".

It was on June 26 that Antony had held yet another meeting with the three Service chiefs to resolve the grievances of the armed forces. But it did not seem to have worked.

The MSP, which as per the pay commission allocates Rs 6,000 per month to officers up to Brigadiers and only Rs 1,000 to jawans, NCOs and JCOs, remains a major bone of contention. Admiral Mehta's letter says the CoSC was "given to understand", at the June 26 meeting, that the MSP arrears would be paid with effect from January 2006. "However, it is now understood that is not so," it says. The demands connected to MSP are that arrears should be paid from January 2006; it should be raised to Rs 3,000 for PBOR (personnel below officer-rank); it should count for increments; and that "notional MSP should count for pre-January 2006 retirees towards calculation of their pensions".

The other demands raised in the letter are a common pay scale for PBOR, fixation of officers' pay, implementation of the one-rank-one-pension principle, compensation in lieu of quarters for PBOR, and removal of anomalies pertaining to middle-rung officers like Lt-Colonels, Colonels and Brigadiers, among others. Interestingly, the CoSC has also expressed "serious reservations" about commissioned officers "being equated" with Military Nursing Service officers, holding that this will create "functional imbalances" in military hospitals and "impact" patient care.

With anger simmering in the rank and file of armed forces over pay commission, the three chiefs of course do not want to be accused of "a sell-out" by the men they command. In the end, however, there is grudging acceptance that once presented with a fait accompli by the government, the armed forces will have to like it or lump it. "We are a highly-disciplined force. We cannot take to the streets like our civilian counterparts. But, pay commission after pay commission, the forces always end up being short-changed by the bureaucracy," said a Colonel.

Holding that they need to be "better compensated" for the high risks and turbulence of service life, the forces want their 'running pay bands' delinked from their civilian counterparts due to their slower promotion rate and shorter service period as compared to the latter.

Source :