What about increase in Grade Pay for ranks other than Lt Cols, upgradation of status, higher pay for Lt Gens etc ? Is the story over ?

Fortunately No. The story is not over, not yet.

A committee is going to examine the inter-se relativities of military and civil officers and the issue has not been rejected as reported by some sections of the media.

Before rumour mongering, langar gupp and half-baked reports rise again, I feel it important to throw light on the little I know on the directions of the PM on the military pay & status issue.

It is true that the note from the PMO contains a stipulation that combat ready Lt Cols are to be upgraded to PB-4. But what is the definition of Combat readiness ? Nobody knows. Every officer of the defence services is a combatant - hence to my mind, every Lt Col/Wg Cdr/Cdr should get it. I think this stipulation should simply imply that those officers who are currently holding appointments on deputation in ‘outside organisations’ which are tenable by civil officers of the Junior Administrative Grade (JAG) shall continue to receive a GP of Rs 7600 till the time they revert back to the forces.

The problem however is that the term ‘deputation’ has different connotation for the military vis-a-vis the civil services. In the civil services, it refers to an appointment outside the cadre and is purely voluntary and optional in nature while in the services postings to organisations such as MES, AR and RR are sometimes technically (incorrectly) termed as ‘deputation’ but are not so in the classical sense. In fact, if I remember correctly, even the Hon’ble Supreme Court had held that postings to Assam Rifles are mandatory and not ‘deputation’ in the conventional sense as the term is used in the civilian set-up.

It also brings us to another important point. In the civil services, an officer who volunteers to proceed on deputation on a lower post remains in his or her actual pay band but draws a lower GP attached to that particular deputation post. Drawing the same analogy, all Lt Cols must remain in PB-4 even if they are on deputation to other (lower) posts. It would not be fair to implement this modality any other way.

Another aspect sent for implementation by the PMO is that Lt Colonels would henceforth not be posted on deputation to other organisations. Good in a way since they would not have to work under officers from other cadres with a shorter length of service till the relativities are actually settled, but how would we be able to implement this remains to be seen. I personally feel it is not exactly practical though it would all depend on how ‘deputation’ is defined for such orders to take effect.

As I said in my previous post, there is no ‘full stop’ in issues like these and the setting up of the committee to examine rest of the issues shows just that. Had the GoM been satisfied with the current relativities in vogue as imposed on the forces, there would have been no orders for setting up of a committee. The committee would definitely go into the service conditions, historical perspective and length of service taken to reach particular ranks and grades while deliberating on this very imperative issue. Ideally the GoM itself should have examined these issues but perhaps going into such details would require additional and better technical expertise.

We should stay positive, we’ll symptomatically handle all issues as they come. I don’t think any anger should be directed towards our pay cells or top brass or elements in the MoD who supported the forces’ demands - they have played their roles well, otherwise the story would have climaxed in August 2008 after the govt resolution. Some months on, Lt Cols are in PB-4, many other ‘lighter’ anomalies stand addressed and the issues of status, relativities and pay parity stay alive. I may sound too optimistic but nothing is possible till we all exude positive energy. If readers remember, I always used two words for those who felt that PB-4 was an impossible dream – Have Faith, and I’ll say them again.

“Positivity, have you had your plus sign today ?” : Prince (1988)