An IRS officer terms letters written by IAS on 7th Pay Commission a “copy-pasted” exercise

IF YOU closely follow social media, there is more to the high-voltage Modi Vs Nitish Bihar poll campaign these days. Some allied service officers now come out strongly, and openly, against the lobbying by IAS officers to retain their "edge" over others ahead of the submission of the 7th Central Pay Commission. Abhishek Gautam, an IRS officer at the rank of deputy commissioner-IT, writes in a blog post that “identical contents” of the IAS officers’ letters to voice against a possible pay-parity by the 7th CPC are…
“simply cut, copy-pasted and signed by hundreds of young IAS officers”.  Let’s reproduce excerpts of his article where he cites a particular letter written by an IAS.
“For eg. The above letter begins with the sentence ‘We are given to understand that the pay commission is planning to recommend equating IAS with all other services being recruited by the UPSC.....Nothing could be more demotivating than this for a young recruit into the service.’
The letter's author (which in this case is difficult to identify as all IAS officers cutting across cadres and batches have reproduced it almost verbatim) further elucidates the reason for this "demotivation" .
A list of these reasons:
1. Being young officers they are sent out to mofussil areas , far-flung corners of districts or Naxal infested regions .
2. Posting in areas with likelihood of communal tension ,natural calamity and extreme backwardness.
3. Personnel of similar vintage in other services beginning their careers in Tier 1 towns.
However what seems amusing is the way the letter blows hot and cold in the same breath. For instance, the author proclaims the feeling of pride and honour of getting such challenging work however expresses the same factors as de-motivating if he does not enjoy edge and superiority in terms of pay and empanelment over other services. He has conveniently forgotten that the government has invested heavily in the past and continues to do so in setting up heavy bureaucratic infrastructure in terms of Official Residence, Guards, House Helps, Police protection, paraphernalia and contingency and unaudited funds at disposal which is commensurate with the unique working environment of a particular post. Moreover such thankless approach belittles the courage and dutifulness of hundreds of other Government functionaries like police officers, Central Para military officials, Forest rangers, Army Officers not to speak of numerous NGOs and volunteers working without much state support and privileges in deep, interior areas where hardly any IAS officer would have set foot since 1947.”
The IRS writer further objects to the content of one letter written by a young IAS officer and questions the premise that “only IAS officers have the DNA of coordination”. The IAS officer in his letter said that he is strongly against any change in the relative pay structure of the IAS vis-a-vis any other service, suggesting that the edge for the IAS be further increased from the current two years to four years, in view of increasing need for coordination. The IRS writer reacts as follows:
“It is surprising that the signatory to the letter happens to be an IAS officer of 2-3 years service tenure and having no experience in coordinating with other Group A services at central level is seeking the edge to be increased from 2 to 4 years. It shows that the so called edge that has been maintained hitherto is artificial and serves only to satisfy egos of the Chosen Ones. The coordination is part and parcel of Group A officer's job and varies from assignment to assignment in different services, be it Police, Revenue, or Railways, etc. To claim that only IAS officers have the DNA of coordination which should be increased further is nothing but a hegemonious attitude displayed towards other Non-IAS services.”
For the entire write-up of the IRS officer, you can log into thinkingfingerwrites dot blogspot dot in.