NEW DELHI: In a major welfare measure for paramilitary jawans, the government has decided that the period of hospitalisation due to injury or disease suffered during anti-Naxal and other operations will be deemed as being ‘on duty’ and full salary will be paid for such duration.
The Union Home Ministry, sources said, accorded its nod in this regard after the paramilitary forces sought a change in the existing rules, which consider a hospitalised trooper as being ‘off duty’.
“The government had approved the demand of the central forces in this regard and, recently, all the forces have also notified these rules, to be implemented in their respective forces like CRPF, BSF, ITBP, SSB, CISF and NSG. This is a morale boosting step for these men and women in combat,” said a senior official who is privy to the development.
Officials in these forces said that due to their full-time deployment in combat zones like Left Wing Extremism-hit areas and insurgency-prone states of the Northeast, “injuries are very regular, (occurring) almost every other day”.
“There are numerous times when troops sustain injuries during routine patrols in LWE-affected states due to improvised explosive device blasts or in ambushes. The hospitalisation period, after this, ranges from a week to a few months and the troopers lose out on their salary despite being on duty. That anomaly has now been rectified,” the official added.
Henceforth, the duration of hospitalisation of a jawan or trooper due to an injury sustained or disease contracted during deployment, will be considered on-duty.
The official added that due to the deployment of these
personnel in areas with harsh climate and inhospitable terrain, the frequency of them contracting a disease like malaria and cholera is always high.
“The Border Security Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Sashastra Seema Bal are border-guarding forces and many of their posts are located in very difficult and harsh areas.
“Every time a trooper gets hospitalised due to some illness, he loses salary despite he or she being at the forefront of the job. The new directive will surely act as a morale booster for these men and women,” the official added.
With a combined strength of about 8-lakh personnel, the central paramilitary forces are not only deployed for rendering a variety of internal security tasks but are also requisitioned by the government to help in the conduct of elections and maintenance of law and order in trouble-prone areas. (AGENCIES)
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