Usage of PBOR

From: kishore sule [mailto:thesignalmanmcte@yahoo.co.in]
Sent: 26 February 2011 09:07
To: Report My Signal (Chander Kamboj)
Subject: Re: SOME OF THE EMAILS RECEIVED FROM MEMBERS - "REPORT MY SIGNAL" - EMAIL 082/2011 - 25 FEB 2011 (LIST-6)


Sir,
I have been voicing my concerns on the usage of PBOR. One such write-up published in the MCTE Newsletter is att.
Lt Col(Retd) H S Bhandari
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PBORSome things you don’t digest. Hard as you may try to convince yourself to swim along the current, you may yet be uncomfortable. As a uniformed man for so long, I have not been able to accept our rank and file category being called ‘PBOR’. This was coined by bureaucrats in the South Block and we have lapped it up gleefully. In civil departments there are officers and non-officers. In the MOD, the ACSO (Assistant Civilian Staff Officer) is not an officer, per se, but the CSO (Civilian Staff Officer) is an officer. This classification has different sets of rules as regards to recruitment, training, transfers and growth. Take Central Police Organizations, for example. The officers are bureaucrats (IPS or State Polices Service cadre) but the troops are fauji type soldiers. In banks, when a clerk is due to become an officer he declines the promotion because now he would be liable to transfers.
We take pride in having Junior Commissioned Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers in our ranks for whom the tenures, terrains, transfers are the same as for the Officers. Air Force and Navy can, to some extent, think on these lines (PBOR) but surely not the Army. This PBOR started from South Block, came to Sena Bhawan and now it is an accepted nomenclature even in Part I Orders published ‘somewhere in the western sector’. It is painful to notice that the Record Offices have started using this acronym.
In MCTE, where 50% staff is civilian, we may be tempted to the classification of Os and PBOR. What about a Field unit ? And we talk of values and traditions ! Do we no longer take pride in our JCOs and NCOs ? What about the junior leadership ? The Platoon or Section 'Commanders' leading the patrols or even the operations ?
Change is good. It should be in the outlook, in thinking and in deeds. Copying the bureaucratic jargons just to please them ‘on file’ is definitely lowering the bar.