ABOUT PAY PARITY

The Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) have won a hard-fought battle for pay parity with their Indian Police Service (IPS) and other “Group A organised services” counterparts. The Supreme Court has granted “non-functional upgradation” to officers from the CRPF, CISF, BSF, NSG, etc. the order grants automatic financial upgradation to those officers who have been unable to move up the hierarchy due to lack of vacancies. The disparity was a long-standing point of dispute with the IPS.

Sources say the problem originated in 2006 when the Sixth Pay Commission recommended that officers from services other than the IAS should be given a financial upgradation everytime an IAS officer two years junior to them gets a promotion to avoid financial stagnation. Oddly, while the recommendation was accepted for all central civil services in 2009, the government denied it to the CAPFs, which it said were not “organised services”. But the Apex Court has now ended the disparity.

However, the CAPFs are now focused on another ongoing battle with the IPS — to prevent IPS officers from dominating the senior positions in the paramilitary forces. So far, each CAPF is headed by IPS officers. The matter is also in the Supreme Court.