In pre-Budget attack, Shiv Sena takes up delayed payment of allowance to army personnel

Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece Saamna in an editorial on Wednesday criticised the Central government for not providing sufficient allowance to the army personnel. The editorial blamed the economic slowdown for the insufficiency of the funds and said that the government has no money left to pay the soldiers apart from their standard salary.

"The economic downturn has hit the army, paramilitary personnel. The central government does not have the money to pay the allowance of 90,000 personnel of the Armed Forces Force, which is protecting the country's borders overnight," the editorial read.

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Saamana further mentioned that this was not the first time the Central government had stopped the payments of the soldiers. The editorial mentioned that in September 2019 the Home Ministry had refused to pay the Central police force a monthly amount of Rs. 3600 for daily utilities, but later after a lot of discussions over the issue the Ministry agreed to pay the army personnel.

This piece of Saamana comes after the Border guarding force SSB has put on hold payment of arrears and other allowances to its troops for January and February owing to "paucity" of funds, official sources said on Saturday. All arrears will be released to the employees in March, they said. Last year, a delay in government sanction of additional funds of Rs 800 crore for the CRPF had prompted the paramilitary force to order temporary stopping the ration money allowance (RMA) for its troops.

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SSB stops allowances to troops for 2 months due to paucity of funds

They said the headquarters of the paramilitary force here has alerted all its formations in the country that the funds are "hardly sufficient" to pay the regular salary of the staff for the months of January and February, therefore no other bills for the about 90,000 personnel strength force will be entertained.

According to the latest order accessed by PTI, the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) has informed its field units that no arrears of pay or allowances like leave encashment claims will be given for January and February due to paucity of funds. Owing to this condition, the order issued on January 23 under the 'most immediate' category said: "no other claims except regular (salary) bills of January and February will be entertained".

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When contacted, officials said while the salary of the force personnel will "absolutely" be not affected for the current and the next month, all arrears will be released to the employees in March. "This is a routine and temporary exercise done to tide off fund crunch at times. It has happened in the past as well. All arrears and other payments will be cleared by March," a senior official said. The force functions under the command of the Union Home Ministry as one of the five Central Armed Police Force (CAPF).

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