One Rank One Pension - Pension promise in peril?

One Rank One Pension - Pension promise in peril?

Pension promise in peril?

Military veterans claim babus are thwarting PM Modi’s poll pledge of one-rank-one-pension by inflating its cost estimates

Roman emperor Augustus started the tradition of military pensions in 13 BC, when every legionary who had fought 20 years for Rome was guaranteed a pension for-life. It set the bar for modern armies, and independent India continued the British tradition of financially privileging military service until the mid-1970s, when soldiers were paid more than civilian bureaucrats, in service and after retirement. 

All that changed with the Third Pay Commission, which brought military salaries in line with civil services, and while soldiers have long complained about political control over the military in independent India mutating into bureaucratic control, a row over the NDA’s promise for one-rank-one-pension (OROP) for military veterans is raising questions about the government’s ability to translate its intent into action.

Fifteen months after Narendra Modi first demanded it immediately after being anointed the BJP’s PM candidate, 10 months after the UPA government granted it, five months after NDA’s finance minister Arun Jaitley confirmed it and almost two months after the PM told soldiers in Siachen that it was his “destiny that onerank-one pension has been fulfilled”, military veterans are questioning why the promise has still not been implemented.

Put simply, OROP means that every pension-eligible soldier who retires in a particular rank deserves the same pension, irrespective of date of retirement. Currently, soldiers who left the armed forces more recently receive more than those who did earlier, because successive pay commissions hiked salaries. Two days after he was anointed BJP’s PM-candidate in September 2013, Modi vehemently supported the OROP demand at a veterans’ rally in Rewari. With roughly 12 lakh veterans also constituting a huge vote-bank, UPA government approved the demand in February 2014, and it was reaffirmed by NDA in July, when finance minister Arun Jaitley specifically provisioned Rs 1,000 crore in his 2014-15 budget (within an overall defence pensions budget of Rs 51,000 crore). Yet, it remains stuck in bureaucratic wrangling.

Read more... Times of India

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