With the objective of providing well-stitched and properly fitting uniform to Army jawans, the Defence Ministry has approved a list of items to be purchased from Rs 10,000 annual dress allowance recommended by the Seventh Pay Commission. Apart from this perk for “basic” uniform, the jawans will continue to get free of cost combat dress, sports shoes, blankets and other items needed for deployment on high altitude like Siachen glacier.
The list approved by the Defence Ministry on Friday after detailed talks with the Army includes nearly 40 items, including summer and winter uniform, mufti dress and accoutrements like lanyard’ belt, badges, ribbons, chevron and formation sign. The list was pruned from 51 to 40 as earlier there was lack of clarity about the total number of items covered by the allowance leading to an impression that the allowance was inadequate.
Before the Seventh Pay Commission recommendation, jawans were issued two pairs of basic uniform every three years plus an allowance of Rs 240 every month for maintenance of the kit. This was proving to be inadequate as the soldiers invariably had to buy the uniform on their own as two pairs of standard issue did not last for three years. Moreover, the uniforms in many cases were mismatched forcing the soldiers to spend their own money for properly fitting uniform.
The new approved system will bring about qualitative change and due economy, officials said here on Friday. With authorized pattern of dresses available through Defence canteen, the dress will be cheaper, they said the unstitched cloth will cost about Rs 600 to 700. Earlier, the unstitched cloth was provided by ordnance factories.
Moreover, stitching hubs are planned through organisations to employ army wives and disabled soldiers for running these hubs.
All other clothing items, including combat dress, physical fitness training kit as also the newly-introduced improved physical training (PT) shoes, will continue to be issued free of cost to all soldiers from the military stores. Recruits will also continue to get additional dresses during recruitment training as before.
The items which will be supplied to the soldiers from military stores also include blankets, ground sheets, raincoats and mosquito nets.
Special clothing items that are authorised to soldiers when deployed at Siachen, super high-altitude and extreme cold climate areas will be issued as per present procedures, officials said.
Stating that dress allowance caters to meet the long-due aspiration of soldiers who wanted well-stitched and well-fitted uniforms, they said the Seventh Pay Commission had recommended the clothing allowance based on the feedback from soldiers regarding quality and inappropriate fitting of dresses provided to them. It was decided that provision of dress material and allowing soldiers to get it stitched as per their individual fitment would be a better option, they added.
