news details |
|
|
| No row between armed forces, Govt on pay hike: Army Chief | | | AGENCY
NEW DELHI, Sept 28: Justifying their reservations on the recommendations made by the Sixth Pay Commission, Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor on Sunday said that there are no differences between the government and armed forces and everything is in good shape.
Gen Kapoor further said that the forces had made their recommendations to the panel and were hopeful of getting their genuine demands approved.
"I just want to clarify that this talk of differences between the armed forces and the government...I think that is not right," Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor told reporters here after laying a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyothi in India Gate to mark Gunners Day.
The remarks came a day after the Central government formed a three-member committee headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to look into the objections raised by armed forces over the Pay Panel recommendations.
The Centre hurriedly constituted the committee, which also includes Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Defence Minister A K Antony, after consulting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is on a visit to the US and France.
The Defence Minister said that the armed forces will get their pay in new scales by Diwali. He also said that the government was aware of anomalies in the pay and assured that the issue will be addressed.
The committee is expected to give interim relief within a week. The Centre also said that all pending issues of the armed forces on pay hike will be resolved by the end of October. Meanwhile, all the service headquarters have been instructed to submit revised pay scales notification to the Defence Ministry by Monday.
Following this, the Services decided to accept the revised pay scales "for the moment" and submit the salary bills to the Defence Ministry tomorrow.
The armed forces (Army, Navy and Air Force) had decided not to implement the Pay Panel recommendations alleging discrepancies in parity and status in comparison to their counterparts in Civil Services and Central police organisations.
The government had earlier agreed in principle to the Services' demand for restoring 70 percent "extant pensionary weightage" to jawans on the basis of their last drawn pay. But the armed forces are cut up with the Finance Ministry over the rejection of their three other demands concerning officers.
The CPC had recommended that the jawans be given 50 percent "pensionary weightage" and provided an option of lateral entry into paramilitary and Central police forces.
The armed forces wanted the lateral entry scheme to be first approved and implemented by the government before the CPC recommendation on the 50 percent "pensionary weightage" came into effect.
In effect, over 50 lakh civilian government employees will take home higher pay packets along with the arrears announced in the CPC, but the 13-lakh-strong armed forces personnel would reconcile with the old salaries, to send a strong message to the government.
Among the other demands were over placing Lt Colonels and their equivalents in the Navy and Air Force under Pay Band-4 instead of Pay Band-3, Grade Pay to officers from Captain to Brigadiers on par with their civilian counterparts, and placing Lt Generals in the Higher Administrative Grade (HAG) Plus pay scales as the Director Generals of paramilitary and police forces. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
