7CPC: IPS officers, IRS officers seek pay parity with IAS officers from 7th pay panel
New
Delhi: Various service associations of All India Services and allied
services have represented to the Seventh Pay Commission seeking pay
parity with IAS officers and adequate representation in central
government’s policy making positions.
Officers associations
of Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Revenue Service (IRS), Indian
Audit and Accounts Service (IA&AS) and Indian Forest Service (IFoS)
have made detailed presentations to the Pay Commission about their
grievances and suggestions for the future.
Though made
separately, the associations’ presentations unanimously voiced their
demand for ensuring pay parity with IAS officers and a share in Joint
Secretary-level posts at the Centre.
Though made separately, the
associations’ presentations unanimously voiced their demand for ensuring
pay parity with IAS officers and a share in Joint Secretary-level posts
at the Centre.
The Indian Revenue Service officials demanded
that top level posts be increased to accommodate them on par with IAS
officers. Asserting that they were involved in the important task of
collecting revenue for the government, the IRS officers association said
the superiority of IAS and Indian Foreign Services (IFS) officers
should go as they did not face any hardships.
Listing out the
“disparities”, the associations complained about delay in empanelment of
officers of their services as Joint Secretaries at the centre vis-a-vis
IAS officers. For example, they said, while a 1997 batch IAS officer is
empanelled as Joint Secretary, for empanelment of an IPS officer he has
to be of the 1993 batch, 1994 batch for IA&AS and 1989 for IFoS.
These organisations deprecated IAS officers deciding the fate of other All India Services and Allied services officers.
The
IRS officers also demanded positions ranging from Superintendents of
Police to Joint Directors in the CBI for its officers, claiming they
were equipped to deal with economic crimes.
IA&AS memorandum also sought equality in rules governing central deputation and allowances.
In
its representation, the IPS Officers Association deplored that its
demand for pay parity with IAS and IFS has been ignored by successive
Pay Commissions.
“But the same (their demand) has not found
favour with the Commission. Unfortunately, the reasons for turning down
the request were never based on merit but through direct acceptance of
flawed arguments made by the other side on the basis of specious
premises,” it said.
The IPS officers also demanded that there be
more options for them in central staffing and policy making, especially
police-specific jobs like internal security division under the Union
Home Ministry.
There are hardly any joint secretary or secretary
level officers in the bureaucracy from IPS. The memorandum also said
that out of 111 posts of Central Vigilance Officers, only 21 were
occupied by IPS officers.
It also spoke about the duty of a
police officer which went beyond his ordinary scheduled work hours. “A
police officer is subject to restrictions on his private life, one of
which is the obligation to obey an order to return to duty,” it said.
The
duty hours spanned more than 16 hours a day and, therefore, there was a
need to introduce an ‘Overtime Allowance’ for police personnel.
Previous
UPA regime had announced the Seventh Pay Commission which was
constituted on February 28, 2014. Chaired by Justice Ashok Kumar Mathur,
it has Vivek Rae as full-time Member, Ratin-Roy as part time Member and
Meena Agarwal as Secretary.
The Commission has been given 18 months to submit its recommendations and its term expires in October this year.
PTI
