Medical Treatment Abroad - IAS/IPS Officers get benefit that was available to other services
CAN you believe it - there are certain facilities available to officers of the Central Civil Services like IRS which are not available to the officers of All India Services? All India Services are IAS, IPS and IFoS. Many in the Central Services believe that IAS is the premier service and those officers get all the privileges that the Welfare State cannot afford. But strange as it may sound, the IAS officers are not eligible for medical treatment abroad to which their lesser cousins in other Central Services are eligible.
A recent letter from DOPT addressed to all Chief Secretaries of the States, proclaims that it has been decided that certain concessions which are admissible to the Central Government servants under the Central Services (Medical Attendance) Rules, 1944, should be extended to members of the All India Services under AIS (Medical Attendance) Rules, 1954 serving in connection with the affairs of the Union. The State Governments may extend these concessions to members of the All India Service serving in connection with the affairs of the State also under AIS (MA) Rules, 1954.
The Concessions are:
1. Travelling Allowance for obtaining appropriate medical attendance or treatment.
2. Airlifting/ outside the state in emergent cases
3. Conveyance Charges
4. Ambulance charges
5. T.A. for attendant/ escort
6. T.A for donor of kidney
7. Medical Treatment abroad: A member of Service shall be eligible to obtain medical treatment outside India or, as the case maybe, to claim reimbursement of the cost of medical treatment obtained inside or outside India.
Now, the IAS officers can at least claim parity with their better placed counterparts in services like IRS, IPoS, ITS etc.