Government to grant apex pay scale to new IB chief soon

New Delhi: The government may soon grant an apex pay scale to the chiefs of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the domestic intelligence agency of the country, and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is the anti-corruption probe agency of the centre.

“A proposal is pending with the government in this regard. A decision is likely to be taken soon,” said a government source.

When Tapan Kumar Deka took charge as the Director of IB (DIB) on June 30, he could not be granted the apex pay scale because he did not figure in the list of 11 senior most Indian Police Service (IPS) officers at the centre. 

NewsDrum had written about it on June 24.

Denial of the apex pay scale to the DIB has touched the raw nerve of the IPS fraternity as he chairs the annual conference of all police chiefs and is considered the head of the entire police family in the country.

In 2016, the government decided to grant the apex pay scale "by seniority" to 11 IPS officers who held the rank of director general, the top post for Indian Police Service officers, at the centre. It meant that if the DIB was not among the top 11 IPS officers at the centre at the time of appointment, he would not be entitled to get the apex Payscale. Before that, the apex scale was tied to the posts IPS officers held at the centre. These posts included the chiefs of central police organisations like CRPF, BSF, CISF or ITBP etc.

Deka, a 1988 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre, is not among the 11 senior-most officers at the centre at the moment and hence was not given the apex pay scale while being appointed the DIB.

Apex payscale is the salary granted to top bureaucrats, secretaries or director general rank officers belonging to Indian Administration Service, Indian Foreign Service or Indian Police Service etc. The current apex pay scale is fixed at Rs 2.25 lakh per month (fixed) excluding allowances due. The country's top babu, the cabinet secretary and three service chiefs get a higher pay scale at Rs 2.5 lakh per month (fixed).

“The issue was taken up with the political bosses by the previous DIB, Arvinda Kumar. There has been a movement in this regard as it being viewed in the government that the DIB and the Director of CBI should be given apex pay scale irrespective of their seniority as they have fixed tenure of two years,” added the source.

Many in the IPS fraternity feel that denial of the apex pay scale amounts to devaluing the post of DIB as he is the top police officer in the country.