Defence forces rake up service structure parity issue

In the last two months, the services have made a number of representations to the Defence Ministry to raise the issue of parity with their civil services counterparts. They had also sought convening of the meeting of a committee to resolve the anomalies detected by the them in this regard, sources said.

About 60 anomalies were detected by the defence forces during the implementation of 6th Pay Commission a few years ago, which they had claimed led to disparity between their service structure and career prospects vis-a-vis the civil services. A Commission was established after the forces had raised the issues and it addressed most of their complaints. But there are certain basic differences in the structure of the defence forces and civil services which remained unresolved, the sources said.

Government had also formed a high-powered committee to look into the issues raised by the defence forces. Since the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission, various Chairmen of the Chiefs of Staff Committees (COSC) had raised the issue with the government but without success, the sources added.