NEW DELHI: Forced charity can pinch. The Indian Army, the world’s second largest, experienced this when its personnel recently came to know of the deduction of a day’s salary.
Army officials later found that Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag didn’t consider it necessary to issue a note informing officials before deducting their salaries and presenting the collected amount of over `100 crore for the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
Suhag, on behalf of the 1.3 million strong Army, on Thursday donated a cheque of more than `100 crore to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund, realised by deducting their one-day salary, at the traditional ‘At Home’ at the Army House on the occasion of the 76th Army Day. However, the PM was not even aware of it.
The Army played a major role in the relief and rescue operations in last year’s floods in Jammu and Kashmir by rescuing over 2 lakh stranded people in an operation which lasted for two weeks.
The issue has now raised a controversy on social media, as Army officials are claiming that they were not informed about their salary cut and it was not made ‘voluntary’.