Defence Ministry stops ‘illegal’ pay cut of troops

Source:-https://www.tribuneindia.com

The Ministry of Defence has stopped the practice of deducting one-third salary of the jawans and junior commissioned officers in case there was “no reporting” about any “occurrence” about the career or life of troops within 10 months.

The Defence Ministry has told the accounts wing, which is known as Controller General Defence Accounts (CGDA), that these deductions were being done “without any government sanction or order”.

The CGDA has issued instructions in November to its various offices to comply with the instructions.

Thousands of troops in the 13 lakh Army faced this every year and it took months to be rectified and the salary to be restored.

The Department of Military Affairs (DMA), which was created in January this year and headed by Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, had taken up the matter and asked the CGDA to show any letter authorising such a deduction.

The deduction was being done by the CGDA in case the Commanding Officer of unit (Colonel-level officer) did not report any “occurrence” for 10 months.

Sources told The Tribune that the “occurrence” includes promotions, illness, leave, official movement, postings, leave for marriage, birth of child, missing in action, battle casualty and absent without leave.

In case there was none of listed “occurrences” in the career or the life of a jawan, the Commanding Officer need not initiate the report which is called “Part-II” report is Army parlance. “Part-I” report pertains to daily work order of the jawan. There would be several instances for the unit where several jawans were just deployed and did not do anything or face anything which merited an “occurrence” to be reported.

Why the CGDA started deducting salaries when the ‘Part-II’ report was not made is still unclear. The MoD makes it clear that the Commanding Officer or his superiors will face action in case they fail to initiate a report of battle casualties or for those missing in action or those absent with leave.