M A I N   N E W S

Allowances of IAF staff hiked
Dasehra gift to servicemen

NEW DELHI, Oct 7 (PTI) — The government today announced a hike in flying and risk allowances and other benefits of Air Force personnel with jumps ranging from over Rs 3,000 for Flying Officers to almost a five-fold leap of Rs 6,000 for Group Captains as a pleasant Dashera gift to servicemen.

The hike in allowances and benefits, which includes enhanced allowances for technical staff, officers and men serving in the Siachen glacier and additional benefits like diploma pay scales and certification allowances will now pave the way for implementation of the Central Pay Commission recommendations in the three services.

The announcement of removal of anomalies was made by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis at a press conference in the backdrop of Air Force Day celebrations tomorrow and came after his marathon meeting with Defence Secretary T.R. Prasad this morning.

He said the hike in allowances and other benefits would be with retrospective effect from February 29, 2000.

All pilots in the IAF till now were getting a uniform flying allowance of Rs 1,200. Now Flying Officers, who are beginners, will be getting Rs 4,500, Flight Lieutenants Rs 5,500, those in ranks from Squadron Leader to Group Captains Rs 7,000 and those of the rank of Air Commodores and above at a uniform scale of Rs 5,250 per month.

The allowances of technical officers currently pegged at Rs 375 have been raised to Rs 1,000 and those with more qualifications to Rs 1,500.

The allowance for officers irrespective of their branch of service serving in the Siachen glacier has been raised to Rs 7,000 and of other ranks to Rs 4,467, a Defence Ministry announcement said.

Highly placed sources said other additional benefits announced for the Air Force personnel included diploma pay scales for Sergeants, allowances for technical personnel like airworthiness certification allowance and flight charge certification allowance.

The government, in addition, announced that all officers and men in all three services would be entitled to special allowances during instructional duty.

The travel entitlement of services personnel has been raised with Sergeant and other equivalent ranks in other services being now authorised to travel by an AC three-tier while on duty.