Services grievances against pay report no breach of discipline: IAF chief

New Delhi, Oct 3 : The Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Fali H Major, on Friday said the Armed Forces have not breached any discipline by publicly airing their grievances over the anomalies in the Sixth Pay Commission report.

"I as the Air Force Chief and other two chiefs have gone through the sixth Central Pay Commission report and put forward the issues which we wanted the government to redress," Air Chief Marshal Major told reporters ahead of the 76th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the IAF.

He further said that the government has graciously appointed a high level committee to look at the issues and is confident that the committee will sort out the anomalies in the pay commission report.

Air Chief Marshal Major also said that the AV Singh Committee report has been approved by the Cabinet, creating more senior-level posts in the three services to improve promotional avenues and remove stagnation.

The proposals of Phase-II of the AV Singh Committee Report approved today would result in reduction in stagnation. The measures taken will also lead to progressive promotion of junior batches without adversely affecting promotional aspects of senior batches, thereby reducing the age profile of officers in select ranks.

The upgradation will be carried out in the Army over a period of five years, in the Navy over the next 10 years and in the Air Force over a period of five years. The total number of posts to be upgraded will be 1051 in the Army, 342 in the Navy and 503 in the Air Force.

Commenting on measures to counter shortage of officers in the Air Force, the Air Force Chief said that there is a shortage of officers, but the situation is not very alarming and the IAF has started short service commissions for pilots, which have became an instant hit.

He said that he is hopeful that the sixth pay commission will help to attract more new talent to the IAF.

Replying to a question on suicides in the IAF, Air Chief Marshal Major said: "A detailed study was carried out with the help of the College of Defence Management and out of the 26 suicides, only one case was stress related and all other cases were related to socio-economic factors."

He added that at present there are 900 counsellors covering 60 IAF stations and pointed that the rate of suicides have come down in comparison to previous years. By Praful Kumar Singh

ANI