7th Pay Commission: Manohar Parrikar asks military chiefs to implement recommendations without any delay

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has asked the chiefs of defense forces to implement the recommendations made by 7th Pay Commission without further delay, media reports say.

Parrikar had a meeting with Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, and Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba as they had decided not to implement the 7th CPC recommendations citing government's failure to resolve their “four core issues”.

Parrikar in the meeting assured the service chiefs that “their grievances would be looked into”, the Indian Express, citing defence ministry sources said.

The armed forces have been unhappy with the cabinet approval of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations saying the anomalies that they had highlighted has not been taken care of.

They said that the fact that the government has set up a committee to look into anomalies arising out of implementation of the Commission’s report is itself an indicator that their concerns have not been taken into account.

Sources said the demand for uniform pay matrix has not been taken into account and that the allowances have not been brought at par with civilian employees.

Non implementation of common pay matrix means that defence pay matrix will be restricted to 24 pay levels even though the bureaucratic pay level is 40.

Another issue of concern is the non-implementation of Non Functional Upgradation (NFU) which would have allowed armed forces personnel to get upper grade of salary even when not promoted like their civilian counterparts.

One of the main grudge that the armed forces have is with regard to risk-hardship matrix. The officers say that a soldier posted in Siachen Glacier, which has the highest degree of both risk and hardship, gets an allowance of Rs 31,500 per month.

In contrast, a civilian bureaucrat from the All India Services draws 30 per cent of his salary as “hardship allowance” when posted anywhere outside the comfort zone.

Under the new scale, a senior IAS official posted in a city in northeast will draw much more as “hardship allowance”, compared to the Rs 31,500 per month drawn by military officers in Siachen.

With PTI Inputs