They are angry over the rejection of their demands concerning officers.
In a move that sent shockwaves through the government, the defence services came closest to the equivalent of a public protest and did not submit their revised salary bills to the defence ministry’s accounts office, thus effectively deferring the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission report “with the existing anomalies”.
“The armed forces have not raised their pay vouchers in accordance with the 6th Central Pay Commission notification and have submitted the bills according to the old pay scales,” said a defence ministry source.
Though the government had yesterday in principle accepted the services’ demand for restoring 70 per cent “extant pensionary weightage” to jawans on the basis of their last drawn pay, the armed forces are angry with the finance ministry over the rejection of their three other demands concerning officers.
The commission had recommended that the jawans be given 50 per cent “pensionary weightage” and given an option of lateral entry into paramilitary and central police forces. The armed forces wanted the lateral entry scheme to be approved and implemented before the 50 per cent “pensionary weightage” came into effect.
“We have accepted salaries under the old pay scales as we expect the government to take a quick decision on all our demands soon after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returns from his US visit on October 1,” said an armed forces officer.
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Defence Minister A K Antony and the three services chiefs have already represented to the prime minister on the four “core issues” they have with the commission’s notification.
Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta and Army chief General Deepak Kapoor met Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekhar and the PMO (prime minister’s office) officials yesterday to apprise him of the “anger” among the 70,000 officers over their demands not finding favour with the bureaucracy.
They also requested the country’s top political leadership to decide on their demands and keep the commission notification in abeyance till the issues raised by them were resolved.
“It is a matter of less than Rs 450 crore annually if the government accepts the four demands of the armed forces, which is not a huge burden on the exchequer,” said an officer.
Among the other demands of the armed forces are 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 Captains to Brigadiers on a 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.
The services, after representing to the government about the pay commission anomalies, had expected that the government would have accepted their recommendations. Instead, the government has taken no action, though it has not rejected the proposals either.
This, in effect, would mean that over 5 million civilian government employees would this month take home higher pay along with the arrears since 2006 while the 1.3 million armed forces personnel will reconcile with the old salaries to send a strong message to the government.