PAY COMMISSION MUSINGS
Sixth Pay Commission (SPC), is the common thread which runs through all possible conversations these days, social or professional. Quite naturally the better halves are as informed, if not better than their spouses regarding the arrears being credited and the upward revisions in the monthly pay-packet. A number of plans for acquisition of goods, jewellery had been formulated in anticipation itself, and would you believe it, there was a diamond jewellery exhibition, quite coincidentally, of course, on at Coonoor at that very time. For once, I was grateful for the forced bachelorhood thrust upon me.
Anyway getting back to the SPC, the precise details of pay-bands, the applicability or otherwise, of grade pay and MSP ( military service pay) towards the basic pay, their cumulative effect on the increments to follow, have been providing us fodder for the gist mills. The cyber-world is the biggest source of information and all kinds of rumours have been doing the rounds there. A number of blog-sites have mushroomed and some of them have registered such volumes of hits that they have even attracted advertisers.
On the flip side the major boon for the men folk is that ladies have started to pay more attention to news channels rather than the “Saas-bahu” soaps on the idiot box. The “battle of remote” is a thing of the past, at least for the time being! The much awaited news of course is like the expectant father outside the labour room, the announcement of PB4 being granted to Lt Cols, I wonder, if even the birth of their progeny was such a “baited breath event”! Lamenting the apathy with which such an important issue is being addressed by the modern day “Kuberas”,( the Treasurer of the Wealth of Gods), ie the Honourable Finance Minister and his band of financial wizards, the officers are seen bearing a resigned look, the optimists like me are still hopeful though, may be ……
Pay commissions traditionally have been highly controversial, by the very nature of their mandate. After all, whoever has ever been happy with his salary? It reminds of an anecdote, when I was all set to join the bandwagon of the salaried class a businessman friend of mine asked me the meaning of the word “salary” in Hindi. In the vernacular salary is referred to as “Tankha”; when the word is split into “tan-kha” it means, “eats the body”. Obviously salary does not add to your body mass, instead eats into it. He was trying to kindle the flame of entrepreneurship in me, little realising that it was given a quiet burial in the playgrounds of RIMC, borrowing from the maxim, “Battle of waterloo was won on the playgrounds of Eton”.
I have again got carried away, and by now I am sure I have earned the wrath of most of the readers for just beating about the bush and not concentrating at the raison d’être of this article. The bone of contention for most of us is denial of Pay-band 4 for Lt Cols. Yes, most of us, we included, as even we were the OBC (Officers below colonel), holding only acting ranks of colonel on the date of judgement, 01 Jan 2006. Unlike the OBCs in the political domain, (they are ruling the roost !), we the poor cousins are left languishing this statement of fact. As if on cue, the bureaucrats have decided to rub it in, by adding to our cup of woes by introducing fresh anomalies. I must grudgingly grant it to them that though they have not had the privilege of having been graduated from the hallowed precincts of the “Institution of the Owls”, they are well versed in the basic stratagem of war and practise it with accustomed ease. A perfect diversionary offensive has been launched by introducing these fresh anomalies. The aim being to keep us mired in this imbroglio before we can go back to the original ones. They are convinced that this would take its toll on us and we would either reconcile ourselves to our fate or they would by then put it in the lunar orbit (irretrievable!).Warrant of precedence is being quoted in support as also to counter our claims. Well, we are of course quite clear of our domestic hierarchy, so irrespective of the amount of the arrears credited, the decision to put them to good use is obviously of the better half (she is senior in rank naturally!).
Here is hoping that we get what is rightfully ours, not as a doled out grant but as our just and honourable honorarium.