Dear Mr Defence Minister,

The ESM fraternity is shocked that you have ordered the Chiefs to implement the 7th CPC Award as it is and will sort out our grievances. Sir, we have heard these same words before and have been duped every time. Wonder if someone has told you that the Ajit Kumar Committee sat for five years to sort out anomalies of the 5th CPC and produced zilch! The Cabinet Secretary’s Committee was formed to redress our grievances after 6th CPC and as expected again gave peanuts to the soldiers. Do you think that the soldiers will take your promise of sorting out the issues seriously? We can be fooled once, maybe twice but not every time.

Wonder if you are aware that there is a precedence to the Services refusing to implement a pay Commission award. After the 4th CPC Award the Services were not happy with the scales for JCOs & OR and the bureaucracy had tried to tweak officers’ salaries in their own favour. The Services accepted the award 4 months after it was paid to the civilians. It was the team of the RM, Mr VP Singh and MOS, Mr Arun Singh that fought the case out for us. Are you willing to stand by us or will the the babus’ case of being ‘heaven born’, supported by Mr Jaitley, prevail? After this will the government have the courage to ask the Army to come to its aid eg., in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka? The shocking scenes of total anarchy on our TV screens with the police forces invisible, will surely give confidence to the state and central governments. Luckily, the Centre has its pet CAPFs who will be able to bring the situation under control, like they did in Haryana!

With warm regards

Satish Bahri

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