Protesting defence personnel are defiant and are sticking to their demand for implementation of One Rank One Pension immediately while making it clear to the Centre that they would not budge from their condition of revision of pension every year and if it is not possible then once every two years. While addressing the protesting defence personnel at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, Major General Satbir Singh (retired), chairman of Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement and one of the leaders of the agitation, asked the government to accept all their demands, else the agitation would be escalated.
Sources in the government say an announcement on One Rank One Pension is expected within the 48 hours before Bihar Assembly election dates are announced. Sources have told CNN-IBN that government has already conceded to two key demands. OROP will be implemented from July 1, 2014 with Financial Year 2013-14 as the base year. The veterans wanted OROP from April 1, 2014 and 2015 as the base year.
"All ex-servicemen are united. Even those soldiers who are settled abroad are with us. Indian ex-servicemen in Canada are helping us. We will accept only what is our just due and nothing less than that is acceptable," said Major General Satbir Singh (retired) on Friday afternoon.
But the biggest sticking point is the time duration for equalisation of pension. While the government draft says equalisation of pension will take place every five years but defence veterans have made it clear that it should happen every year and if that is not possible then at least once in two years.
The Centre will also set up one-member judicial commission to find out any anomaly and it will submit the report within six months.
While the number of military veterans is over 24.25 lakh, there are nearly 6 lakh widows, too, who are entitled to lifetime pension. The current pension of defence forces is Rs 54,000 crore and it will increase to Rs 75,000 crore after OROP is implemented.
Almost 85% of military personnel retire before age of 40 but civilian employees serve till the age of 60. Only 1% of military personnel serve upto age of 60. While the number of registered ex-servicemen is 24.25 lakh and there are over 13 lakh serving military personnel. The estimated cost of OROP will be Rs 8,300 crore.
According to sources, the government is likely to brief President Pranab Mukherjee before taking the final call. Notably, the ex-servicemen had recently written to the President, seeking his intervention in the issue.
One Rank One Pension scheme has been a long-standing demand of the ex-servicemen. It seeks to ensure that a uniform pension is paid to defence personnel who retire at the same rank with the same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement.
Several retired defence personnel have been protesting at Delhi's Jantar Mantar for One Rank One Pension. Some of them are also on fast-unto-death.
Comments
0 comment