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.
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
