7th Pay Commission: Now Armed forces express dissatisfaction, Here's why

New Delhi, Dec 4: At a time when Seventh Pay Commission report has already been submitted to Finance Ministry and is likely to be implemented from January 2016, Armed forces have raised its concern.

As per reports, Armed forces are not happy with some of the recommendations and have reported its "shortcomings" to Defence Ministry. Armed forces are concerned about 'risk and hardship allowances'.

Navy chief Admiral R K Dhowan on Thursday said that the Commission's report has been examined and effort is on to ensure that whatever they feel is "necessary" for the officers and men of Army, Navy and Air Force, is made available to them.

"Whatever we feel are the shortcomings are being taken up by the three services with the Ministry of Defence to see that whatever we feel is necessary for our men, our officers, our civilians, is made available to them," Dhowan said during his annual press conference. He said that all issues of "concern" are being taken up with the Ministry.

The Navy chief was replying to a question on the discontent in the armed forces, especially at the level of officers, on the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission.

What are their grievances?

Officers say that if the Pay Commission is implemented in the present form, it will position them much below their civilian counterparts in terms of salaries, facilities and status.

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.

OneIndia news

(With inputs from PTI)