3 Services demand their rep in govt committee on their pay,

Bharat Pensioners Samaj has been demanding since long, representation of Pensioners in every committee wherein matters concerning Pensioners' are discussed & decided.

PTI | 04:08 PM,Aug 01,2012

 New Delhi, Aug 1 (PTI) In a joint stand, the three Services have demanded the inclusion of a representative of the armed forces in the Committee formed by the government to address issues related to their pay and pension. The Committee is headed by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth and all its members are from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and is looking into the main demands of the Services such as elevation of all Lt General rank officers to a higher pay grade. The three Services chiefs, including Naval Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma, IAF Chief N A K Browne and Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh, have written separate letters to Defence Minister A K Antony pressing for the inclusion of a Services representative in the Committee, Services' officials said here. They have also raised the issue of absence of a Services representative in the high-level Committee, the officials said. The Committee was formed by the Prime Minister on July 13 after Antony wrote a letter to him on June 25 stating that there was discontentment among serving and retired soldiers over anomalies in pay and pension issues. He also expressed the apprehension to the Prime Minister that if "corrective action" was not taken, the issue might take a "bad turn". The six-member Committee is expected to finalise its recommendations and submit its report to the Prime Minister by August 8. For serving defence personnel, the Committee is looking into the issues of placing all Lt General rank officers in the higher pay scale grade of Higher Administrative Group Plus (HAG+) and a common pay scale for serving Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs). For the large community of ex-servicemen, the government has tasked the Committee to consider the issue of One-Rank-One-Pension which has been the main demand of the services personnel, and has seen a lot of them returning their service and gallantry medals to the President in the last few years as a mark of protest. PTI AJD