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Panel seeks defence nominee on pay commission

Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI: Taking note of the shortfall of over 13,000 officers in the armed forces and anomalies in the Fifth Pay Commission's recommendations for them, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence has recommended that a member of the Sixth Pay Commission be nominated from the defence forces.

The Defence Ministry had pointed out that the armed forces constituted 40 per cent of the Central employees, with their officers comprising the largest officer cadre, and this necessitated its nominee on the Pay Commission but the Finance Ministry turned down the request.

The parliamentary panel did not accept the reasoning that the "pay commission was an independent panel." It did not accept the reasoning against having an armed force officer as a member convincing enough and listed several reasons why it should be done.

"Successive pay commissions have made service in the armed forces so unattractive that there is a deficiency of 13,000 officers. Between 2001 and 2004, over 2,000 officers applied to leave the Army. These included two Lieutenant Generals, 10 Major Generals and 84 Brigadiers. Against this, how many from the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service leave early?" it asked.

"Vacancies and additional requirements are increasing but the Ministry of Defence is facing difficulties in filling up of vacancies as talented youth is not coming forward to join the services. All difficult and hazardous tasks such as counter-insurgency and counter terrorism, rescue and relief operations during all kinds of disasters fall in the lap of the services. Yet the armed forces are always ignored when it comes to their pay and services."

The Standing Committee found that of the 2,000-page Fifth Pay Commission report less than 50 were devoted to the armed forces. Of its 145-strong staff, the panel declined to take any from the armed forces though there were personnel drawn from varied cadres such as the postal services, the Border Security Force and the Indian Forest Service.

There were major anomalies in its recommendations, one of them being that it gave a Brigadier more pension than a Major General. It also removed the running pay board given by the previous Pay Commission to compensate for the limited promotions in the armed forces.

For the purpose of pension, the defence personnel were equated with civilian employees but the condition of 33 years of service to earn full pension stayed, placing the armed forces at a great disadvantage. Over 90 per cent of the defence personnel retire early and therefore do not fulfil the criteria of 33 years of service to gain full pension. As a result, a former sepoy gets less than half the pension of a retired peon.

Not only did the Fifth Pay Commission ignore the hardships of a career in the armed forces, it did not compensate them adequately for truncated careers, extremely limited promotions, long separations from families and risk to life and limb. In most democracies, these are termed as the X factor and adequately compensated.

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