He said that in the civilian pay structure the disparity had been addressed in 2018 but the services case had got stuck as a strong case could not be presented

New Delhi: The department of military affairs (DMA) has managed to untangle two sticking points regarding salaries of soldiers by pooling the best resources from the three services, thereby resolving the disparity in pay that has been hanging since 2018.

The DMA, which is set to complete a year under Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, brought together the best accounting staff among the services to make a strong case for parity of salaries which has been a touchy issue.

Sources said that two particular issues were addressed as they had glaring disparity when compared to the civilian pay structure. Due to certain anomalies in the Pay Commission recommendations over the years, a strange situation had come into play where junior officers were getting more pay than their seniors in certain cases.

The “stepping up of pay” demand –– that would automatically increase the pay of a senior officer to that of his junior –– has been met with orders being passed last month to all concerned offices. “It was an embarrassing anomaly that, in some cases, say an in-service Brigadier would draw a lesser salary than a Colonel who is junior but got promoted,” an official explained.

He said that in the civilian pay structure the disparity had been addressed in 2018 but the services case had got stuck as a strong case could not be presented.

Another disparity in the “date of next increment” has been resolved with an order passed earlier this year, taking care of an issue that had been sorted for the civilian side two years ago. This now gives soldiers the flexibility to choose their increment cycle upon attaining a higher rank, the absence of which could put them at a financial disadvantage.

“The cases could be moved as the best practices of the three services have been brought together at the DMA. The Air Force, for example, has a dedicated accounting cadre that has been able to put up the case,” officials said.