A Judgement And It's Implementation

Now that the official act of implementing the judgement of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, or an interpretation of the judgement, at any rate, relating to the rank pay issue, has been set in motion through the issue of a Government letter, there are, understandably, expressions of views, in the press and on the blogosphere, as to how the implementation meets or does not meet the letter and spirit of the judgement.

It would be extremely unwise to jump to conclusions and apply a layman's reasoning to an issue that has seen the engagement of some of the soundest and ablest legal minds during the course of a protracted litigation relating to the matter in the highest court of the land. In any case, in the absence of the complete details of arguments and counter-arguments, it's virtually impossible to arrive at a conjecture as to what was prayed for, what was finally granted and how faithful is the implementation to the intent of the judgement.

Of course there are doubts and queries. These grey areas need to be identified and logical analysis applied to ascertain whether there is actually a shortfall and what are the available remedies, if any.

With that aim in mind, the following list could serve as a starting point for clearly documenting the doubts:

*How does the implementation propose to resolve the matter of deduction of rank pay at the time of V CPC?

 **This is relevant in context of that part of the judgement which clearly directs that rank pay be given retrospectively from 01-01-1986? The judgement does not say "give rank pay retrospectively from 01 Jan 86 to 31 Dec 95" or "give rank pay retrospectively from 01 Jan 86 for the IV CPC fixation".

 **It needs to be recalled in this context that at the time of V CPC, for determining emoluments as on    01 Jan 96, the    un-revised basic pay and the old rank pay formed part of the calculation.

 **Shouldn't the emoluments as on 01 Jan 96 have included the new rank pay and not the old rank pay? Let's not forget, at the time of IV CPC the new rank pay as on 01 Jan 86 was to be part of the calculation for revision of emoluments.

 **Then, the calculation for V CPC involved subtracting the new rank pay from the calculated amount. 

 **Thus can we say that rank pay amounting to [(revised rank pay)+{(revised rank pay)-(old rank pay)}] was "not given" at  the time of V CPC and ought now to "be given" in the implementation in context of the judgement?

 **This matter was previously touched upon here.

*How is the issue relating to the payscales proposed to be resolved?

 **How have the rank stages been established for the 'running' payscale of IV CPC without including the element of rank pay?

 **Does the judgement say "give rank pay retrospectively from 01 Jan 86 but do not incorporate it in the payscale"?

  **Wouldn't giving the revised basic, with rank pay added' to a new promotee in ranks of Capt to Brig as on 01 Jan 86, discriminate against subsequent promotees who would get basic pay only applicable to the starting stage of the rank    in the payscale?

 **This issue was previously referred to here.  

There would be issues related to pre 86 retirees, to those who joined after 01 Jan 86. As to how the implementation precisely affect these parties also needs to be carefully evaluated. 

ECHS : A Few Samples Of Quality Of Medical Care Delivery

If an objective, unbiased view is to be formed of the efficacy of ECHS as a system, one ought to, first of all, obtain an awareness of the limitations under which the medical and administrative staff function and the extra mile some of them cover to compensate for lacunae and shortcomings in respect of resources. 

With an appreciation, of the efforts made by the doctors and managers, as the first stepping stone towards reaching an understanding of what more needs to be done, perhaps the next step ought to be a random sampling of some of the common experiences of the user-stakeholders . 

The quality of experience is never constant. It can vary from time to time and from one polyclinic to another. As an example, at some polyclinics a couple of issues have been a source of difficulty lately: 

Procedures For Collecting Medicine: A few medicines are sometimes unavailable at any typical ECHS polyclinic. In order to collect such medicines, veterans share the following experiences: 

v An ECHS member waits in queue to register for consultation. 

v Then, he or she waits in queue for the turn to consult with the specialist. 

v After the consultation, there is another wait in another queue for having the medicine dispensed at the collection counter. The ECHS member gets the prescription back with the unavailable medicines circled in red with the annotation "N/A". 

v This piece of paper has to be taken to another counter for getting rubber stamps affixed. 

v The rubber-stamped prescription has to be taken back to the doctor for his signature. 

v The patient then proceeds to the Officer In-charge of the polyclinic for his counter-signature. 

v Then, with this document, the ECHS member proceeds to the nearest Military Hospital/Base Hospital/Command Hospital, most likely to be situated miles away, which dispenses drugs, not available at polyclinics. 

v Then, the patient again waits in a queue at the MH/BH/CH medicine-counter for ECHS. Sometimes, some of the medicines are also not available at the MH/BH/CH, in which case the personnel at the dispensing counter endorse the non-availability in the record book of the patient. 

v The patient then repeats the whole or part of the process outlined above, several days later. 

Procedure For Issue Of "All India" ECHS Cards: Of late, ECHS cards are being issued on an "All India" basis. With these, an entitled veteran can avail ECHS facilities at polyclinics other than the parent polyclinic in case the entitled veteran happens to be out-of-station and requires medical help. 

v This ought to count as an improvement with the only rider being that this could have been incorporated at the very outset, especially considering that the complete data of the entitled veteran is captured in digital format anyway. The need to apply afresh for a card can be reviewed and the feasibility of converting the existing cards, to the pan-India mode, can be examined. 

v But keeping in view the fact that smart card vendors also contribute to the national GDP and that one ought not to begrudge them a modest fee for issue of the pan-India cards, it ought to be possible, with a little mental effort, to put that issue aside. What appears more in need of rationalisation is the process adopted for issue of these pan-India cards.
 

a.   Firstly, the application forms are available only at the regional ECHS centres situated miles away in a cantonment. Even a quick glance at the forms reveals these are not security-press creations. It's easy enough to realize even a handwritten application based on a common facsimile would suffice just as nicely.
 

b.   The applications can be submitted at the polyclinic and dispatched in batches to the regional centre. There is no reason why the entire process can’t be done online. In any case, there may well be some room for reviewing the current requirement of making one trip for collecting the form, another for getting a demand-draft made at a bank and yet another trip back to the regional centre for submitting the completed application. 

c.   After the application has been submitted, the staff on duty at the ECHS Regional Centre convey the information that the cards would be delivered after about three months. One needs to consider that even civilian departments, not famous for being especially citizen-friendly, deliver such cards within a week or a fortnight. So, perhaps, there also exists a need to rationalise the process time of 3 months for issue of a smart card in this day and age. 

d.   Even payment of Municipal Taxes in the present networked age has been simplified and made possible online for the general civilian public. It may not be out of place to consider the archaic nature of the practice of getting drafts made for ECHS cards and replacing it with the facility of making payments through online banking. 

e.   Bureaucratic processes of the civilian variety are not exactly suited to military organisations and the military style of management. When civilian red-tape is not exactly everyone's cup of tea amongst the defence brotherhood, surely convenient processes that involve a simple click or two of the mouse would be the logical choice for ensuring the delivery of a service to veterans of the Indian armed forces. 

Now, for all one knows, these experiences may not be all that common across the country. In some parts, difficulties of another kind might be the norm. Comments are invited for enlightening all stakeholders in the system and for providing constructive feedback to effect changes wherever possible.

 

Dissecting The V CPC Pay Fixation Formula

{Edit: 16Apr2017: It is gratifying to know this blog-post continues to draw views and interest almost five years after it was published. There may well be as yet unresolved issues regarding the Rank Pay matter. However for the Officer cadre, as well as veteran Officers, there is that other totally unresolved issue of the selection of date of implementation of phase-I recommendations of AV Singh Committee. Just like the rank pay matter, that issue affects all Officers who were serving and also those who had retired by the time the recommendations were implemented. For some time now, I have permanently linked that issue to the right of the blog page as a "Featured Post". All pre 2004 commissioned Officers still in service and veterans could consider going through the matter that affects them all. Here is another link that can be clicked on to view all connected posts}

With the recent distraction caused by news on the COS Report regarding pension anomalies, the spotlight has shifted somewhat from the crunch issue of arriving at a reasonable understanding of implications of the "Rank Pay" case judgement.

It's heartening to note that even the agencies responsible for implementing the judgement have begun to issue some notices on the matter on their web-sites. Some of the lingering doubts regarding the applicability of the judgement post V and VI CPCs are being gradually dispelled as the afore-mentioned notices mention calculations post V and VI CPCs.

Making a reasonable assumption on the manner of the initial fixation of basic at IV CPC, it should be possible to arrive at a, again, reasonable estimate of what the basic pension pay would have been as on 31 Dec 95. Here the result of the efforts of the countless spread-sheet warriors, who had descended on the scene, could prove useful.

The real issues here too would be:

*The viability of the formula used by V CPC for working out the emoluments.

*The manner of addition of Rank Pay to the emoluments.

*The fixation of the worked out revised basic in the appropriate pay-scale corresponding to each rank.
To recall, V CPC had used the following formula for adding up the unrevised emoluments relating to Jan 96: 

1.4[{Un-Revised Basic+Stagnation Pay}+Un_Revised Rank Pay]+DA+IR-New Rank Pay 

The following points cloud the issue somewhat:

*It's not clear why the IV CPC Rank Pay was added to the sum and not the revised, and higher V CPC Rank Pay.

*Why, after adding the lower amount of the unrevised rank pay, the higher amount of the revised rank pay was subtracted from the aforementioned calculated amount for fixing the new revised basic in the appropriate pay-scale.

If the logic of adding rank pay for calculating to the emoluments, as understood from the judgement, is to be followed, the formula ought to have been as follows:



1.4[{Un_Revised Basic+Stagnation Pay}+Revised Rank Pay]+DA+IR

A third alternative could have been to add the unrevised rank pay but not subtract the new revised rank pay, as follows:

     1.4[{Un_Revised Basic+Stagnation Pay}+Un_Revised Rank Pay]+DA+IR 

{Edit}: A fourth alternative would be to retain the old rank-pay in the 40% component but to add the new rank pay for fixation. Let's not forget, at IV CPC the rank-pay which was then "new" was to be added (but wasn't) to the emoluments. At that time the "old" rank-pay was nil and did not figure in the calculation in the 20% component of the IV CPC formula. So we get the fourth alternative as follows:

1.4{Un_Revised Basic+Stagnation Pay}+0.4{Un_Revised Rank Pay}+DA+IR+Revised Rank Pay

Now giving specific examples, or making actual calculations, would be foolhardy in the extreme. We need to get some sort of an indication which one of these alternatives would be most rational in light of the actual arguments that took place during the litigation.

Only through a process of exchange of views and ideas can one hope to arrive at a rational solution to the V CPC stage of the puzzle.

A trial calculation yields the following alternatives for the minimum basic pay of each rank:



Rank	Unrevised  Starting Basic Pay For Rank In IV CPC  Scale	IV CPC Rank Pay	DA	IR I	IR II	V CPC Rank Pay	V CPC Formula Alt 1	Alt Formula 2	Alt Formula 3	Alt Formula 4	Starting Pay In Rev Pay Scale	Next Applicable Increment
I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	IX	X	XI	XII	XIII
							1.4(II+ III) + IV+ V+ VI-VII	1.4(II+ VII) + IV+ V+VI	1.4(II+ III) + IV+V+ VI	1.4(II)+ 0.4( III) + IV+V+ VI +VII
Capt	2900	200	4588	100	310	400	8938	9618	9338	9538	9600	300
Maj	3400	600	5180	100	400	1200	10080	12120	11280	11880	11600	325
Lt Col	3900	800	5217	100	470	1600	10767	13487	12367	13167	13500	400
Col	4500	1000	6105	100	550	2000	12455	15855	14455	15455	15100	450
Brig	4950	1200	6660	100	615	2400	13585	17665	15985	17185	16700	450