THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If you thought that ex-servicemen are treated magnificently in government-owned bodies considering their services to the country, you are mistaken. At least in the state-owned KSFE, the former soldiers are not allowed to hold their heads high as far as salaries are concerned. Over a thousand ex-servicemen employed as clerks for daily wages on contract basis in the KSFE get only less than Rs 200 per day while their counterparts in lower jobs like security guards in BSNL and Home Guards in the police earn Rs 300 daily. Even the KSRTC hands out Rs 250 per day for security guards.More than a quarter of the total staff in the 350 branches of KSFE in the state, who are sourced through a contract with the Kerala State Ex-Servicemen League and another co-operative agency, have a consolidated pay packet of Rs 6,250 per month, out of which the agency commission of 5 per cent and service tax of 0.2 per cent are compulsorily deducted.According to K Harikumar (name changed), an ex-serviceman working at a KSFE branch in the city, “Even a peon in the KSFE draws a first month salary of around Rs15,000. The ex-servicemen with a service of 15 years and more in the Armed Forces are given a step-motherly treatment. It has been continuing ever since the contract and daily wages system was enforced in the nineties,” he says.“ When the PSC-appointed staff, including peons in the same office, are drawing five-digit salaries, the state of mind of those sidelined is imaginable. The discrimination in wages is humiliating and eventually affects the work environment,” Harikumar adds.Ex-servicemen category clerks are entitled to only a single day’s leave per month, besides a weekly off, as per KSFE rules. They are not entitled to annual incentive and other benefits, which come to Rs 25,000, given to those in the permanent rolls. The junior-most among them are under constant threat of being thrown out of their jobs also whenever a PSC-advised candidate comes in. But many of them cling on to the jobs. ‘‘Since the posting is at a branch near one’s home, many continue with the moderate wages and pension. But what is evident is their virtual slavery,” feels James Mathew, another contract clerk who had put in 25 years of service in the Army and more than four years of service in a KSFE branch in Ernakulam district. The PSC regularly fills up permanent posts which are vacant in the organisation.“In fact, the daily wages are better now. It was gradually increased from just Rs 60 a day over a period of one and a half decades,” he said. For clerical work, the KSFE insists on degree as minimum qualification for ex-servicemen, which is the same for permanent recruits. For unskilled jobs like security guards, there is no need for a degree.
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