They can graduate from plain old rum to premium whisky now. But scotch will still largely remain beyond their reach. It was only two cheers, muted ones at that, by the armed forces for the recommendations of Sixth Central Pay Commission.
Grappling with a severe shortage of officers and flopping miserably to attract enough youngsters with “officer-like qualities”, coupled with many seeking “premature retirement” for greener pastures, the armed forces were expecting a doubling of their salaries at the very least.
The jump is certainly there but it’s nowhere near their expectations, with the average hike roughly working out to be around 40%-50%. “The jump is much bigger at the entry-level and senior levels, not in the middle rung. Moreover, the hike for jawans is quite paltry,” said an Army officer.
But yes, the recommendation for a special military service pay (MSP), apart from running pay bands, doubling of special risk allowances and substantial hikes in rank pay, have brought some much-needed cheer to the forlorn ranks of Army, Navy and IAF.
The MSP for all personnel till the rank of Brigadier (Commodore in Navy and Air Commodore in IAF) will be at the rate of Rs 6,000/month for officers, Rs 4,200 for military nursing service officers and Rs 1,000 for personnel-below officer rank (PBOR). This is to compensate for the hardships specific to military life.
The top brass also have much to cheer about. The Army, Navy and IAF chiefs, for instance, have jumped from a Rs 30,000 fixed basic monthly pay to Rs 90,000, making them the highest paid government employees on par with the cabinet secretary. The pay commission has also proposed elevation of the director-general of the armed forces medical services to a secretary-rank officer, with a fixed salary of Rs 80,000 per month.
At the other end of the spectrum, a young Lieutenant (Sub-Lieutenant in Navy and Flying Officer in IAF) will begin in a running pay band, starting from Rs 14,360, with an additional Rs 5,400 as grade pay and Rs 6,000 as MSP. This adds up to Rs 25,760 as compared to the existing Rs 8,250 basic pay scale for a new Lieutenant.
“It’s a good beginning, but the going will not be as good as he goes up. While recruitment of ‘good’ may improve, the retention of ‘better’ in the middle ranks will continue to be a problem,” said an officer.
“The recommendations do not properly address the root cause behind the growing exodus of middle-rung officers like Lt-Cols and Cols, seeking premature retirement for the much higher corporate salaries,” said an officer.
Nevertheless, the running pay band proposal will at least address the problem of financial stagnation in the middle ranks of the armed forces, which have a steeply pyramidical structure, since it has been delinked from rank stagnation. Moreover, the pay commission has recommended the flying, submarine and Siachen allowances be doubled from the existing Rs 3,500 to Rs 7,000 depending on rank. This again does not meet the expectations of armed forces which wanted a four-and-a-half time increase.
The pay commission has also recommended doubling of allowances for special forces and those personnel deployed in high-altitude, field areas, counter-insurgency operations, sea-duty and the like.
It has also been proposed that the encashment of earned leave should be delinked from the number of years of service. This will make all defence personnel eligible for leave encashment of up to 300 days — given only to personnel with service over 22 years — at the time of retirement or discharge.
No more ‘sahayaks’ for paramilitary personnel
Keeping suraksha sahayaks could cost officers in paramilitary forces dearly. The Sixth Pay Commission has come down severely on the practice of using constables as sahayaks at office and home. It has recommended to the government that any officer found indulging in this practice should be punished and the salary of the constable would be recovered from the officer’s salary.
It was brought to the notice of the Pay Commission that officers of and up to the rank of commandant were allowed use of one constable for attending to telephones and looking after guests. PTI
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