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Monday, April 19, 2010

Justice and Equity : Railways Style !!!

Regular readers would remember this blog-post from the last spring.

Indian Railways provide complimentary passes with unlimited usage to gallantry awardees (and one companion) from Article 2 on the Awards’ Order of Precedence (Param Vir Chakra) to Article 24 (Police Medal for Gallantry). But surprisingly, the awards of Sena Medal / Nao Sena Medal / Vayu Sena Medal (Gallantry) are missing from this list of the railways despite the fact that these awards are higher in precedence than the Police Medal for Gallantry and are featured two steps ahead on Article 22.

I took up the issue with the Railways Minister who in all probability was also duly informed about the matter at hand, but as expected, my detailed letter on the subject which was supposed to reach her desk, was hijacked somewhere midway and rejected again by lower level staff on the pretext of ‘financial constraints’. Ms Banerjee, is still not in the picture.

But what I wanted to convey was not the above. The appalling aspect of the story is that while the legitimate dues of SM / NM / VM (G) awardees have not been addressed by the Rail Bhawan on the grounds of financial constraints, the Railways have gone ahead and now provided 50% concession (60% for ladies) to recipients of the Police Medal for Distinguished Service and Police Medal for Meritorious Service who are above the age of 60 years. Surprisingly, the issue of financial constraints is nowhere to be heard in the corridors of Rail Bhawan in this case. Selective constraints ?

19 comments:

ANUPAM TIWARI said...

ye meraaaa INDIAAAA.....i love my india!!!!if railways is financially constrained!!it is surprising to know !!!lalu was invited to US as to how he turned a dead elephant into a gold harvest two years back.....and now if some one says "CONSTRAINED"...then it happens only in INDIYAAAAAA!!!

Anonymous said...

These issues need to be addressed by some Chaps with asterix on their collars sitting pretty in Service HQs.
But their attitude is "Sannu Ki"
Retirement ke baad naukri nahi mili toh hulla bol ab chuppi theek hai..

Harry said...

@ Anony above at 9:23 am

Dear Sir,

Thought it was pretty plain to each and everyone by now.. that how POWERLESS the people in Red Tabs are when it comes to sorting out things outside Armed Forces. No use blaming these 'poor' souls!

LT.COL.(RETD) K.B.MATHUR said...

I agree with Anonymous@9.23.People who are in uniform today are going to be exservicemen tomorrow .They must raise their voice within the constraints of rules ,regulations and discipline .Discipline does NOT mean that we should become a bunch of cowards

Harry said...

Well

The specious arguments put forth by Rail Bhawan remind me of similar statement issued by Mayawati Govt in UP after scores of poor people were killed in a stampede at Kripalu Maharaj's langar. UP Govt had SHAMELESSLY claimed that the state had NO funds to give compensation to the stampede victims despite splurging 1000s of crores on Mayawati and Kanshiram's statues.
It seems Rail Ministry is NO different!

JB Singh said...

This just illustrates the underlying patronizing attitude which the govt has for the Armed Forces, which they desperately try to conceal.

I find it hard to believe that a civil servant would have not understood the implications of this act. He/She did, and nevertheless went ahead, probably to make some point.

And the final cut is that the brass sitting in the MOD could not swing something which the police easily did.

I only hope that our gallantry awards are not being viewed with suspicion now? And that the police ones are considered more 'genuine'.

Anonymous said...

Is not possible to go through RTI and/ or project the case through media? What about service HQ?

Kaps said...

Not trying to sound different, I feel the underlying feeling in the babooze head is quite simple. All he thinks is "fauji ko pehle se hi warrant aur concession voucher milta hai, aur oopar se medal ke liye bhi concession mangta hai". If this is not the underlying feeling, then I am lost.

I won't be surprised if we ourselves are not taking up the case citing the same logic. If we can't ourselves honour our medals, why take/award them? might as well return them to the govt like the ESM brethren.

LT.COL.(RETD) K.B.MATHUR said...

It is because of such treatment given to the Armed Forces ,that there is so much shortage of officers in Army ,Navy and Air Force .If youngsters can get better paying jobs outside ,why should they opt for Armed Forces and be treated unfairly .

Anonymous said...

Dear Navdeep,

Kudos for ur efforts.

Unknown said...

It is not only about getting the pass. It is about dignity. Discrimination starts at home. Sena medal before 1999 gets Rs 250/-, post 1999 750/-.
I get both, and feel hurt every month i see my payslip. The case should be taken up, but is anybody listening?

Navdeep / Maj Navdeep Singh said...

@Hiten

Can you please send me an email. Wanted to discuss something with you.

Regards

N

Harry said...

@ Kaps

sir,

If railways think that we faujis get warrant and concession voucher as it is, then in my humble opinion, it should catalyse the ministry to end discrimination as the real loss of income (for railways) is NOT going to be as much by giving free passes to gallantry medal winner (viz. SM)faujis due to this very reason. On the contrary they earn much more BADWILL (...if you will) by denying it.

PS: Heck, just occured to me, why can't BADWILL be opposite of GOODWILL. Its apt. Hell will the grammar!

Anonymous said...

@ Kaps said... April 19, 2010 7:25 PM

This line of thinking is exactly what gets us down. All Babus who have been Secretaries in the Min of Civ Aviation are now being given free Air passes -business class for life. Most IPS Officers get Extinguished (Pardon the pun) Medals for Duty Beyond the Call of nature. This is like most IAS chaps get into HAG so OROP be damned. Even their retirement take homes Gp B Civil Servant is better than any Fauji Officer. Yet they subvert the discussiion by talk of CSD and other perks. In fact XLRI has worked out that the serviceman gets a benefit of only about 1500 Rs by purchases from the CSD if he does so at the max utilisation of his limits(which is rarely done). When one of the State Govts. decided to compensate its civil servants oficial car with cash in lieu they demanded Rs 18000 a month plus petrol as utilised. Faujis of course will be happy with 100-200 Rs and will go ga-ga over the perks.

Kaps said...

@Harry. What I mentioned was line of thinking present amongst the babooze. Maj Navdeep has clearly brought out that this issue has probably not even reached the attention of the minister. The conniving lower level thinks absolutely low and creates arguments that suit the low level thinking. Surprise however, lies in the fact that the higher echelons get swayed by such logic and allow the decisions to be created under their names.

Unknown said...

dear sir,

could u throw some light on the maternity leave provisions for the lady officers. As it always happens, there is always a way sought of how to deny a genuine right to an indl, my wife is not being granted maternity leave quoting that maternity leave cannot be granted in first trimester of the pregnancy and can be only granted 6 weeks before due date.

Unknown said...

Dear Navdeep,
I was the first one to give you complete details on this anomaly and detailed list of PPMG/ PMG and Army awards, where we found that number of beneficiaries in Police are much more than armed forces even if Railways give this Pass to SM/NM/VM (G). i donot know whether we should just leave it as a bad joke or we should persue it as RTI/ PIL, if Rail Mantri is not getting the communication and same being hijacked by babus.

Sarjeet Yadav said...

I think its better to pursue the case then to blame the system. Lets not leave the hope... I think the ways it can be handled is firstly by Media.. channels like NDTV have lot of fauji programs and its likely to work out faster. Next way can be RTI, but in my opinion has already followed that in past. May be different RTI with differently framed questions.

Anonymous said...

sir any updates on the issue expected. the post seems to have died down