Anomalies in salary plague 2003-batch police personnel

They allege that the discrepancy remains unsolved for almost 12 years ever since the implementation of Sixth Pay Commission in 2007.

The 2003-batch of Tamil Nadu police is one of the largest contingents with 7,400 personnel posted across districts as constables in the force. While all of them have been promoted as head constables in January this year, there seems to be a range of discrepancies in their pay scale, with the most important being the basic salary. Though some of them draw Rs 36,200 or less as basic pay, others draw up to 37,300.

A head constable speaking to DT Next said that it all started with the implementation of Sixth Pay Commission recommendations in January, 2007. “About 7,000 personnel joined the force on December 1, 2003, while the rest joined in first quarter of 2004. The pay commission recommendation was implemented from January 1, 2007 and the annual hike is calculated based on date of joining of the personnel. So, those who joined in first three months of 2004 get their annual hike based on the salary that is already increased after the pay commission. This leads to them getting higher salary than those joined in December 2003,” he said.

Another police personnel said that the disparity was temporarily resolved in 2014 after the issue was taken up with the senior officers. “However, within months, the department soon started recovering the sum claiming that it was wrongly calculated. Again, the recovery was informally stopped after the instructions from the DGP’s office. But in some places the recovery of the regularised sum is still deducted, which results in a difference in basic pay of personnel, who belong to the same batch. And since January, with the promotion as head constables, the gap in the salary has widened further,” he said on condition of anonymity.

Head constables in some parts of Kancheepuram, SB-CID and CB-CID are getting paid more than most of their counterparts. “Our basic pay should be Rs 37,300, which only some are getting. And there is a recommendation by the Pay Commission that if a junior is getting paid more, the seniors should also be paid the sum, which has been cited to the ministerial staff, but they keep giving excuses that they have sought clarification from the DGP office as well as the Home Department,” he said.

The aggrieved police personnel said that Joint Commissioner of the respective wing is responsible to fix the salary and that is how SB-CID and CB-CID personnel are getting the revised salary properly. “But in other wings, the issue remains unattended,” claimed some police personnel.

Similarly, personnel from the rank of sub-inspectors and below, working in the CoP zone that includes Central Crime Branch, too allege that they have been drawing lesser salary than their counterparts in regular police stations. “When even the kind of respect we get is decided by the salary, it becomes more of a prestige issue when our juniors get paid more than us even if it is just Rs 1,000,” said police personnel attached to Central Crime Branch. When contacted, Joint Commissioner (Headquarters) A G Babu of Greater Chennai Police said that such anomalies did not come to his attention yet and added that he would look into the matter.