The recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission, which include salary hikes for more than 4.2 million central government employees and over 5.2 million pensioners, has been met with fierce resistance from the armed forces.
The major point of contention is the apparently apathetic attitude of bureaucrats and politicians, who, military personnel allege, consider the defence services much inferior to them.
While the commission’s recommendations guarantee many perks for bureaucrats, there is not much for the tr-services. For instance, the disability pension for an Additional Secretary is Rs 70,000 and that of a three-star General only Rs 27,000.
The apparent iniquity between the government and the forces is what the men in uniform are protesting against.
Many have long supported this claim of the armed forces, with VJ and music entreprenuer Nikhil Chinapa being the latest to join the chorus.
Here are a few of the reactions to the issue from Twitter:
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