High Attrition Grips BSF

High attrition grips BSFVimal Bhatia, TNN 21 October 2009, 03:24am IST

World's largest para-military organisation, Border Security Force (BSF) suffers from highest attrition for quite a while. Experts cite reasons like low promotional avenues along with pay disparity in relation to their armed forces counterparts after the implementation of the Sixth pay commission report for the high attrition rate in the BSF. Every month at least 350-400 BSF jawans and officers seek premature retirement of which Rajasthan Frontier has not been far behind. A BSF source said the Centre does not realise the challenges our jawans and officers face every day while protecting the 7,000 km long border adjoining Pakistan and Bangladesh. "During 30-35 years of career, a BSF person could manage to stay not more than a few days with his family and the promotional avenues in comparison to the army personnel, it has been frustrating for them," said a source. According to an available data more than 900 jawans and officers from the Rajasthan Frontier alone left the job during October 1, 2008 to September 30 ,2009. The data released by BSF headquarters at New Delhi reads that in 2008 alone at least 4,400 people left the job while till June 2009, it has crossed 2,600 at the all-India level from the organisation. As the data reveals most of the personnel leave the job after completing 20 years in service just to take post retirement benefits while almost 40% of them leave the organisation well before 20 years of service on account of low wages, promotional avenues and tough living conditions and service conditions.

A retired director general BSF, M L Kumavat, accepted the fact of high attrition rate in the BSF but said "The trend has been arrested after the implementation of the pay commission report." Kumavat believes that not only the service conditions and pay disparity have not been the reasons for high attrition. "People leave the job as they get lucrative offers from the private sectors and also family pressures and responsibility plays its role," added Kumavat. Kumavat accepted the fact that a constable in the BSF takes at least 20 years to be promoted to head constable while a similar rank in the Army needs 7-8 years to reach that level.

Similarly, a second command officer in the BSF have not been included in the pay band 4 (P4) while his counterparts Lt colonel has been included. Agrees P S Nayar, general secretary, All India Central Para Military Forces and Services Welfare Association, who said "The difference between the salary of a jawan in BSF and Army is of at least Rs 5,000 a month meanwhile the difference goes up to Rs 22,000 in case of higher ranks. This disparity does more harm than good so far moral of BSF is concerned."