On the last blogpost concerning the committee constituted on the directions of the
Prime Minister, some have shown utter discontentment and lack of any hope from
the said working group. Some organisations have rejected the group even before
the initiation of its functioning. While the distrust vis-à-vis some certain of bureaucracy is understandable to an extent, painting the entire set-up and
also the serving military community as being ‘selfish’ and concerned about its
own needs and requirements would not be in order.
And
is this approach correct? Needless to say, the formation of the committee is a
much welcome step and the credit for it goes to the Pay cells of the three
services, mainly the Army Pay Cell, to have adequately highlighted at the right
places the requirement of resolution of many pertinent anomalies. It may be
pointed out here that earlier the formation of an ‘anomalies committee’ had
been summarily rejected by the MoD but the Pay Cells and the current senior
incumbents of the AG’s branch still managed to convince the Raksha Mantri of
the requirement of redressal of these anomalies.
There
is some deficit under the present circumstances and some loose ends that need
the attention of the PMO, the Cabinet Secretary and the Services, some of these
are :
(a) No stake holder is a part of the committee. Since the committee has been
granted the authority to co-opt additional members, the thrust should be on the
request to have minimum of four members from the military committee – one
serving, each from Army, Navy and Air force and one veteran. It may be recalled that similar committees for civilian employees function democratically with a 'staff side' and 'official side'.
(b)
When a Parliamentary Committee has already looked into the demand of One Rank
One Pension (OROP) and recommended the same, would it be ethical for a
committee of bureaucrats to examine the same demand? Wouldn’t this send a wrong
message? Who is more important to the PM, the voice of elected representatives
of a democracy or a body of career bureaucrats?
(c)
There are many other important anomalies that remain unaddressed. How will
those be addressed and by whom? Who decided that these were the only 9 issues
that required redressal? Who picked up these 9 from the long list of ‘core
issues’? One such very important issue is the issue of broad-banding of
disability percentages which affects 80% of all disabled veterans in India and
which has led to a spate of unwanted litigation, this issue is the most
important stand-alone subject today which requires serious attention rather
than rounds of litigation.
(d)
Though despite internal inertia by lower echelons of the MoD, the committee has
been established, but would it function on its own merits with proper
application of mind by the members with independent inputs invited from all
concerned or would it again fully depend upon the Pension and Pay/Services Wings
of the MoD which have been at the forefront of stonewalling and putting up
misleading notes to confuse the top leadership.
Some
questions remain unanswered and the constitution of the committee is not
perfect as far as its members are concerned, but I would request the defence
community to be optimistic on the subject and not jump the gun till the time
the recommendations are submitted. Also the Services HQ are at this time
tirelessly working towards the objective and need our encouragement in this
regard, not negative vibes.
Let
us keep our fingers crossed, be optimistic and hope for the best. Still
otherwise, this committee is not the last word even if does not entirely meet
the expectations of the military community.
