With reference to the column, "After OROP, instability" (September 15), the subhead reads, "After OROP, the military will now demand further pay and promotion parity with civilians." My question is why not? Non-Functional Upgrade (NFU) in fact, brings in inefficiency. What NFU really means is all cadres are equal to IAS-2. Isn't this ridiculous? The armed forces have an efficient functional rank-formation matrix. You cannot promote someone to major general and keep him as a brigadier commander. Look at how the Mumbai police commissioner's post was upgraded in 24 hours to accommodate someone. There are many such examples.
Here are some solutions for the 7th Pay Commission. All personnel should get the same pay for the same number of years in service. So if someone becomes a joint secretary in 20 years, then colonels too, should get the same scale as a joint secretary does.
The gross pay of everyone, who has been in service for 35 years, should be the same. Let people join the cadre they like.
Reduce all civil salaries so that each cadre has a 20 per cent shortage, for example the shortage of officers in the Indian Army. That will tell us what each cadre deserves. In fact, why have a civil and police service in a place where the army is called for, like in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern states?
Candidate should not be allowed to sit for the Union Public Service Commission examination till they have completed seven years of short service commission in the army. Those who want to get in directly would lose five years of seniority.
That apart, let's hazard something more important. One rank one pension has brought military and civil costs to the forefront. In 1957 India voted a communist government to power. Will we democratically vote a military government in another 10 years?
T R Ramaswami Mumbai
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