Will put pressure on Centre to resolve 'one rank one pension' issue soon: Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: After taking up the issue of plight of farmers and home owners, Congress vice President Rahul Gandhi is standing up for 'one rank one pension' scheme for former servicemen in the Army. The Congress Vice President met former military personnel and war widows at the Congress headquarters on Saturday.

""One year has passed of the NDA government, of the Modi government and it has not proceeded ahead with the issue. They (ex servicemen) had knocked the doors of the government, but nothing materialised. Army, Navy, Air Force take care of the nation, secure our borders, their demands should be met. We had alloted money and also taken a decision. One year has passed and this should happen at the earliest. We will pressurise the government and ask them to take a decision at the earliest," Rahul said.

Party sources said that Gandhi is taking up the cause of "one-rank-one-pension" at a time when there is unhappiness among ex-servicemen over non-implementation of the scheme.

Congress has alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gone back on his words on the issue after promising to implement the scheme for retired military personnel.

The demand for one-rank-one-pension scheme made by soldiers had been acceded to by the Congress led UPA government and announced again by BJP dispensation after it came to power last year. The UPA government had even allocated Rs 8300 crore budget for the scheme.

Reports had it that the Comptroller of Defence Accounts has estimated that the cost of one-rank-one-pension could be as high as Rs 9,300 crore.

The Congress Vice President has taken up a variety of issues including the protests against the Land Acquisition Bill to woo farmers, Real Estate Bill to empathise with urban middle class and protection of youth through net neutrality.

Former Minister of State for Defence and Congress leader Jitendra Singh accused the government of being anti-soldier. He said the UPA government first took an initiative on the issue in 2006, then in 2009 and 2013. Singh said the party fears that the government was "diluting" some of the provisions.

OROP, a long standing demand of ex-servicemen's associations, relates to payment of uniform pension to defence forces personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement.