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The Rediff Special/Major General Ashok K Mehta

While all civilians can serve till 58 years, 80 per cent of servicemen retire earlier -- officers at 52 and the men at 35

The status of the service officer has been progressively downgraded since Independence. Previously, a joint secretary was at par with a colonel. Today he has advanced himself to be equivalent to a major-general, and is vying to equal a lieutenant-general.

Similarly, paramilitary forces like National Security Guard, the Border Security, the Central Reserve Police Force and the police have also been allowed to disturb old equations by thoughtless proliferation of posts like that of the director-general of police, assistant DGP and so on.

This has resulted in senior major-generals, area or divisional commanders in charge of counter-insurgency, who earlier interacted with an inspector-general of police, now dealing with an ADGP, who is senior in rank and pay scale. This is where the anomalies of the FFF and the ACP come in. In the case of the services, the first three scales of ACP are at 5, 11 and 17 years of service, whereas for the others, it is 5, 11 and 14 years, the last being the lieutenant-colonel grade.

Similarly, the number of pay increments for the services is almost half of that received by their civilian and police counterparts (a director with 12 years's service gets ten increments whereas his colonel equivalent with 20 years service gets only 5 increments). There is also the catch of the lower and higher ends of the salary brackets. The service salary bracket has been so engineered that one of these two is always kept lower than the civilian equivalent so that the pay scale equation is generally to the disadvantage of the soldier. This, is turn, affects the calculations of foreign and other allowances and status.

These anomalies in the FFF have to be removed to ensure a pay chart that till not disturb the existing equation between the armed forces and central government services. This pay chart must lend itself to a simple tabulated from. In Pakistan, it consists of three pages. The Indian model is 27 pages, complex, full of ambiguities, loaded with 'subject to's, 'provided's and 'if need be's. The fixation of the pay chart is both the root and key to problems of status.

The positive aspects of the award are catch-ridden. The redemption of the matriculate infantry soldier to skilled status has come not one day too soon though he will be screened by a trade evaluation committee. For officers, the pay increase is roughly four to fivefold. Other sops include increase of Rs 100 in kit maintenance allowance, Rs 800 as conveyance allowance and Rs 200 as city compensatory allowance.

The increase of the Siachen allowance from the existing Rs 1,300 to Rs 7,000 is not a paisa too much for the sacrifices on Siachen. It is a pity the Siachen degree of difficulty was not applied with the greater risk to life that attends tenures in J&K and the North-East.

The discontinuance of the running pay, which was an incentive against stagnation, has been partially compensated by doubling the rank pay. Officer cadets at the training academy will get paid Rs 800 but, unlike IAS probationers, their service will not be counted.

One of the basic grievances of the soldier is that while all civilians can serve till 58 years, 80 per cent of servicemen retire earlier -- officers at 52 and the men at 35. While a joint secretary reaches major-general-equivalent rank in 16 to 20 years service, the service officer reaches it after 30 to 32 years. And a mere three per cent, compared to 17 per cent for civil servants, make it. Less than one per cent serve till 58; the remaining one million officers retire between 35 and 52 years.

The need for a more youthful profile and the peculiar command structure do not permit the luxury of ad libbing appointments like in other organisations. The non-military central services reach higher ranks with less service, remain longer in individual jobs, serve longer with minimal risk and turbulence and are re-employed on retirement. Soldiers, sailors and airmen are simply used and discarded.

The government has not accepted the services proposal for a two-year increase for officer ranks up to lieutenant-general because it has rejected the case of the central services. This is patently unfair.

Overall, the government has made cosmetic improvements on the iniquitous and biased FPC award for the services. The government should have done more to remove the anomalies, and at least promised to review their unmet demands by appointing a separate AFPRB. Surely, merely giving pay hikes is not enough.

Granted, that there's a limit to the amount of money a government can give its employees. But there is no constraint on it giving soldiers additional prestige and respect. Unattended and unsung coffins of soldiers, dumped like unclaimed baggage in the cargo terminals of airports, are an insult to the army and a slur on the conscience of the nation.

The author was a general officer commanding the Indian Peace-Keeping Force in southern Sri Lanka. He is also a founder member of the Defence Planning Staff of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.

Kind courtesy: Sunday magazine

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