Disability pension cut: Where does the buck stop?

First, a report said that the disability pension was to be slashed, then the government backtracked, but where did it start?

WrittenBy:Subhabrata Dasgupta
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On October 10, Ajai Shukla, a retired Indian Army Colonel and journalist reported that the government was “quietly putting finishing touches” on a plan to slash disability pensions for Indian army personnel for injuries incurred in the line of duty.

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The disability pension for the armed forces was calculated by the fifth Central Pay Commission (CPC) on the basis of a slab system, while the same for civilians was done based on percentage related to last drawn pay. This was corrected during the sixth CPC, but Shukla claimed that the seventh CPC was about to push things back to where they stood after the fifth CPC. The slab system disadvantaged soldiers as compared to officers. Only lower-ranked soldiers with a shorter length of service were benefited by the slab system.

Such news, coming at a time when the government and the Defence Minister were crediting the Narendra Modi government for empowering the army against Pakistan’s transgressions raised many hackles. Times of India quoted unnamed government sources as saying, “There was a dramatized article in the media today describing how the pensions of Army personnel who participated in the surgical strike get cut drastically if they got severely injured during the surgical strike. But the fact is that the disability pensions for war injury cases for personnel who have been invalidated have not been touched, according to the recommendations of the 7th pay commission”.

On his blog Broadsword, Shukla trashed the TOI report, saying the government’s “denial” was not a denial after all, as no one in the government was willing to trash his report on record.

“Nobody in government wants to put their name to a patently false denial,” he wrote.

The reported move to go back to the slab system of calculating the disability pension drew much flak from army veterans. On Friday, the government appeared on the defensive. It said that the representation of the armed forces for a percentage-based system was referred to the Anomaly Committee of the 7th CPC.  The setting up of the Anomaly Committee of the seventh CPC was announced this August, following concerns by Union government employees, to review minimum wages and anomalies which have crept in following implementation of the new Pay Commission recommendations.

A release by the Press Information Bureau (Defence Wing) on October 13 said, “The 7th Central Pay Commission recommended a slab based system for determining the disability pension for Defence Forces personnel, which was accepted by the Government. Percentage based system was followed in the 6th CPC regime for calculating disability pension for Defence Forces Personnel as well as Civilians.”

“Service Headquarters have represented that the percentage based system should be continued under the 7th CPC for calculating disability pension for Defence Services at par with their Civilian counterparts. The Ministry has referred the representation of the Service Headquarters to the Anomaly Committee of 7th CPC for consideration.”

This meant that return to the slab system, which was effectively slashing disability pensions was put on hold, while the Anomaly Committee considers the matter. While this was, at best, a face-saving measure, the government’s own press release admitted that the seventh CPC’s recommendations were accepted by the government. In essence, its initial “denial”, as published in the TOI, quoting unnamed sources, is of no value. The press release also meant that Shukla’s report was true.

What next?

While the matter is with the Anomaly Committee of the seventh CPC, experts believe that a solution is at hand. Major Navdeep Singh, author, lawyer, and a former volunteer with Indian Terrotorial Army told Newslaundry, “”I think the issue will be resolved now that the Defence Ministry is aware of it because it is too glaring an anomaly to be left as it is.”

Singh added: “What is very strange is there was no such recommendation from the Ministry of Defence or the Army to reduce disability pension. Normally demands are placed by officials, and the Commission acts on them. Question is why a similar exercise was not carried out for other services.”

Newslaundry also spoke to Shukla, whose report brought the move into public consciousness. He believed that a roll-back was in the offing, since the issue had a lot of political capital.

“I think the Anomaly Committee will roll it back, and there are two reasons for it. First, the social media backlash against the move. Second, the upcoming elections in the states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. All three states have a sizeable percentage of servicemen.”

Where does the buck stop?

Despite an expected rollback, the handling of the matter leaves many questions to be answered. Were the political masters not aware of the implications of such a move? Most importantly, if the Services did not ask for a change in the pension system, then who made the recommendations?

Singh said, “I think the political executive should have been properly briefed about the pitfalls of such a recommendation.”

When Newslaundry dug deeper into the issue, we found that the rot was somewhere else. According to multiple government sources, a mid-level official attached with the Indian Defence Accounts Services presented flawed data to the seventh CPC, making a case for switching back to the slab based system.

Based on this, the seventh CPC made the recommendations, and they were accepted by the government, pointing to a lack of due diligence at multiple levels. “Our systems since time immemorial, irrespective of which party is in the government, instead of following a participative and democratic policy making mechanism, follows a one-way noting sheet system,” said Singh.

“In the one-way noting sheet system, one level of Under Secretaries adds file notings, and people above them tend to blindly trust them. They do not go into the nitty-gritties. The excuse being given is that officials do not have as much time to go through. Political executive and the officials need to be very wary of suggestions coming from lower below.”

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