1. A soldier leads a life with a lots of hardships like postings far away from home, difficult terrain, risk to life and limbs, prolonged duty hours (with NO compensatory off for working on Sundays / holidays - as available to civilian counter parts), frequent postings from one end of the country to another resulting in difficulty in giving good education to children (not all places offer KOTA type training for budding Engineers / Doctors / Civil services candidates), lack of family accommodation not to forget CI.
2. To add to the misery, a soldier is sent on retirement at the young age of 35-37 years (just because we want to keep Services young), when his family commitments are on the rise. His children are school going (3rd / 4th standard), his parents are old (will require treatment / medical care) and his income reduces to less than 50 % of what he was earning. If a soldier is lucky, he gets a SECURITY GUARD's job after retirement, which earns him just 2000 rupees. This is because being in uniform for 15-18 years, where value system is different, he has become UNFIT for CIVIL way of life.
All these difficulties are known to countrymen.Then how can a Pay Commission be NOT aware of these hardships and compares a soldier with a peon / messanger in civil, who do not endanger life , retire at the age of 58 / 60 and have other ways to suppliment their income (just visit any Govt office issuing some certificate to know this). Hope and wish some one listens and acts.
