Syed Ali Ahmed
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 5
Centre may revisit retiree clause
- After veterans rejected the government’s decision to implement the OROP in the current form, the Centre reportedly decided to come out with a ‘clarification’ on its applicability
- “…There are other issues that are yet to be addressed but the major one is premature retirement that unnecessarily got put in. It was not required to be part of the note. We do not know how it cropped up," said Major General Satbir Singh (retd)
The government is likely to come out
with a "clarification" on the applicability of the one rank, one
pension (OROP) to those who opted for premature retirement.
Ex-servicemen said this after
meeting Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Saturday night, hours after the
government announced the implementation of the scheme that was rejected by
veterans on account of five-year revision of pension and whether it would cover
those who took pre-mature retirement.
Major General Satbir Singh (retd)
said he was "satisfied" with Parrikar’s statement. “…There are other
issues that are yet to be addressed but the major one is premature retirement
(PMR) that unnecessarily got put in. It was not required to be part of the
note. We do not know how it cropped up," he said.
Major General Singh, who earlier
refused to budge till all demands were met, also hinted at a rethink on whether
to continue with the protest. "We will take a decision on the agitation
after talking to the core group tomorrow morning. For now, the clarification
has been taken from the Defence Minister. If the voluntary retirement scheme is
not applicable to the armed forces, there is no question of
retrospective," he said.
In the afternoon, ex-servicemen
welcomed the Defence Minister’s announcement of implementing the OROP saying
they disagreed on excluding prematurely retired ex-servicemen from the scheme,
five-year equalisation of pension and one-man judicial commission. Major
General Singh said when defence officers and soldiers take pre-mature
retirement and get pension, why they should not be given OROP.
“According to the service rule, an
officer can take premature retirement after serving the force for 20 years and
a jawan for 15 years and thereafter is entitled to pension benefit,” he said.
On the government’s decision to equalise pension after every five years, ex-servicemen
said it should be reduced to one year. “If the government is short of funds, it
can be reduced to two years,” he said.
On this, the government announced to
constitute a one-member judicial commission under a retired judge that would
submit its report in six months, which was again not accepted by ex-servicemen.
Major
General Singh said the committee should comprise five members — three
ex-servicemen, one serving defence officer and one member of the Defence
Ministry. “The committee should be under the Defence Ministry and the time to
submit the report should be just one month,” he said.
