Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today participated in a veterans' protest march supporting the stand taken by the three armed forces chiefs against the "bias against the defence services" in the Seventh Pay Commission and submitted a memorandum to Governor V P Singh Badnore on the issue.
The march was led by Lt Gen S S Brar (retired), the seniormost amongst the veterans, and included among others retired army personnel including several lieutenant generals, major generals, brigadiers, colonels, JCOs and soldiers.
Ambika Soni, Asha Kumari and Harish Chaudhary were among the senior Congress leaders who joined the veterans in their march.
The memorandum, addressed to the President who is the supreme Commander of the armed forces, said, "The community of veterans across the country fully endorses the stand taken by the chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force with regard to the recommendations of the seventh Central Pay Commission."
"It is the bias of bureaucrats against the armed forces and the blind eye turned by the political parties running the government which has led to this situation," the veterans told reporters.
"We constitute the largest share of employees and pensioners and we have no say in the decisions made by a handful of bureaucrats which are imposed on the armed forces," they said.
"The brazen and blatant discrimination against the defence forces has been continuing ever since Independence", the veterans claimed.
"The lowering of our status in the Warrant of Precedence, lowering our pay scales vis-a-vis other government cadres, brining it below the police and now the central police organisations is a deliberate attempt to belittle the armed forces," they alleged.
Amarinder, himself an ex-armyman, said lowering pay scales vis-a-vis other government cadres can only demoralise the defence forces.
He said India cannot afford a demoralised defence force with China and Pakistan being next door neighbours.
"Just because our soldiers belong to a disciplined force
does not mean their rights are trampled upon," Amarinder said, expressing hope that the anomalies are removed at the earliest.
"Nobody among the bureaucrats knows about the hostile conditions in which our soldiers are made to work and that is the reason there is such a bias against the defence forces," he said.
"I have suggested to the Defence Minister that the bureaucrats who have habitually been creating hurdles in providing better pay to the defence personnel should be made to serve in Siachen for at least a day so that they realise what a soldier goes through," he said.
He said this is not only an issue of salary for the defence personnel but their status vis-a-vis other civilian services including the police and the administration.
He said the defence services have to be put constitutionally higher to the civil and police services.
Once their salaries are less than those in corresponding ranks in the civil and police services, their status will get lowered down which is not in the national interest, he said.
"If the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations are accepted as such, what will happen in a situation like Kashmir where Army is assigned the job as a last resort, will it be asked to work under the local police and administration?" he asked.
The veterans who participated in the march also included ex-Lt Generals A S Sekhon, S R Ghosh, ex-Brigadier Kiran Krishen and others.
