JOIN USParity in pay for Army, paramilitary
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday accepted some of the demands of the military, including restoring the parity in pay package with paramilitary personnel for middle-rung officers.
However, the Centre left out some of the other concerns highlighted by the armed forces. The pay hike would benefit 14 lakh serving military personnel and 18 lakh veterans drawing pension. While the Cabinet accepted 2.57 as the fitment factor on the existing basic pay for government employees, an exception has been made for the rank of Brigadier in the Army (and equivalent in the Air Force and Navy).
For officers serving in these ranks, the fitment factor would be 2.67. Also, additional increments were sanctioned for the ranks of Lt Col, Col and Brig to bring parity with their counterparts in the paramilitary organisations.
It was done to address military's apprehension of receiving lower salary than paramilitary officers and troops triggering operational problems. “This is one of the pay commission's recommendations that we have not approved. The parity was not disturbed,” said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
However, another major issue concerning the risk allowance was not addressed as a separate panel was constituted to review the commission's recommendations on allowances.
The committee is to submit its report in the next four months.
Going by one of its recommendations, an IAS officer or a civilian employee posted in Guwahati were to receive a higher “tough area allowance” than the “hardship allowance” proposed for the Army officers and troops in Siachen – a proposition not acceptable to the military.
The services submitted their objections to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, who took it up with the Cabinet.
“I gave my recommendations to the Cabinet. Some of them were accepted,” commented Parrikar after the Cabinet meeting.
In accordance with the rank, military service pay has been increased from Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,600; Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,200; Rs 4,200 to Rs 10,800 and Rs 6,000 to Rs 15,500, respectively. The terminal gratuity for Short Service Commissioned officers exiting between 7-10 years of service has been increased to 10.5 times of the reckonable emoluments.
But the military’s demand of a common pay matrix was not accepted by the Cabinet, which went ahead with separate matrices for civil, defence and military nursing service.
Other decisions impacting both the military and the employees include an enhancement in the gratuity ceiling from Rs 10 to 20 lakh. The ceiling on gratuity will increase by 25% whenever DA rises by 50%.
A common regime for payment of exgratia lump sum compensation for civil and defence forces personnel payable to the family of those killed in operations would be enhanced from the existing level of Rs 10-20 lakh to Rs 25-45 lakh for different categories.
What is Pay Matrix?
The pay matrix introduced by the Seventh Pay Commission in place of earlier Grade Pay addresses the important issue of adequacy of the compensation structure, DHNS reports from New Delhi.
According the pay panel report, the purpose of pay is to compensate the employees for work done, to motivate them to perform well. The purpose also includes attracting talent to government service and also retaining them, thus avoiding the need for expensive recruitment and training for replacement.
The new pay matrix, the report says, incorporates all these features, subsuming the grade pay, the rationalised matrix presents the whole universe of pay levels in one simple chart.
The levels have been rationalised too, displaying a logical pay progression. If employees can see their pay level, where they fit in and how they are likely to progress over their career span.
The pay panel has also recommended simplified procedures for computation of pension.