WAR OROP : AVERAGED MEAN VALUE PENSIONS IN OROP THE POTENTIAL CAN OF WORMS

NOTES  ON "SARKARI OROP"



SOURCE : 
http://sol-dozdoz.blogspot.in/2015/09/the-potential-can-of-worms-of-averaged.html

CURTSEY :SUNLIT



THE  POTENTIAL CAN OF WORMS
                                    OF
 AVERAGED MEAN VALUE PENSIONS IN                                   OROP

Tuesday, September 08, 2015

 

It is anybody's guess when an official

 

implementation letter for OROP would be

 

issued. Till it can be seen and its detailed

 

provisions are known, it would really be

 

impossible to assess how OROP would translate

 

into reality.

In the last blog post, I had placed the

 

methodology of calculating the average of

 

pensions, for a certain rank with a certain

 

number of years of service, as the most

 

important concern of all. Now, with the other

 

issue that had caught the public imagination,

 

viz., the applicability of OROP to pre-mature

 

retirees, receding into the background, it may

 

be important to look at the averaging matter so

 

as to be a little aware of the consequences any

 

decision regarding the same could have.

The statement of 5th September, on the subject

 

of averaging, carries just the sort of vague

 

tones of feigned innocence that ESMs, with

 

their hard earned experience of the devious

 

manner in which phraseology can be deployed

 

as a weapon of offence against them, might be

 

justified in sitting up up and taking notice. If

 

such a blatant attempt as introduction of that

 

VRS issue can be made, in a statement to be

 

read by no one less than Hon'ble RM, there

 

could be some reasonable basis for concern on

 

what else might be in store.

Not being one inclined to favor spreading

 

paranoia, I would still urge a bit of caution. I

 

would not like to subscribe to current

 

speculations whether or not the highly

 

publicized VRS matter was an overt feint

 

intended, by some sections, to mask more

 

covert measures for whittling away at the

 

entitlements that should flow from OROP. The

 

VRS matter could have been a simple last

 

minute drafting glitch, but it would be erring on

 

the side of safety to not take things at face

 

value.

To quote the statement of 05 September 2015,

 

"..Pension will be re-fixed for all pensioners

 

retiring in the same rank and with the same

 

length of service as the average of minimum

 

and maximum pension in 2013..".

What does the "average of minimum and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

maximum pension in 2013" mean?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the questions raised would, of course,

 

 

 

 

 

 

be the same as those mentioned in the

 

 

 

previous blog-post. But I felt it best to keep this list of queries in one place here. A bit of repetition of the old along with newer aspects, as they emerge, may not hurt.

 

 

 

*Is it the maximum and minimum pension

 

actually paid to a certain rank with a certain

 

number of years in 2013? If so, will it also

 

include pensions of those who retired before 01

 

January 2006 paid in 2013

 

*Is it notional max and min pension calculated

 

on the pensionable emoluments of a certain

 

rank with a certain number of years?

*If it is the notional pension, how will it be calculated? For instance for a Lt Col with 20 years of service at the beginning of base year (January 2013 if it is calendar year or April 2013 if it is the financial year), will a calculation first be made to see what the pay of that Lt Col would have been in December 2005, i.e. at 13 years of service for the calendar year scenario and 13 years 03 months of service in the financial year scenario, in both of which he would have been in the Lt Col rank in Dec 2005. Then the up-gradation of VI CPC would have to be applied to see where the fixation would have been from 01 Jan 2006 and his pay on 01 Jan/01 Apr arrived at after applying increments. There could be a simpler way of just taking the notional pay at 20 years of service from the pay-band for Lt Col but that would assume the Officer started at the bottom of the pay-band and reached the pay as applicable to a Lt Col with 20 years of service. This, in most of the cases, won't be true due to intervention of the VI CPC implementation date of 01 Jan 2006.
*The calendar year vs financial year ambiguity is peculiar, to say the least. If it had been the financial year 2013_14 ending 31 March 2014, it would have made perfect sense to implement from April 2014, as was originally announced by the Government as, let us face it, Government is Government, regardless of which political party is in power. If, due to reasons of bureaucratic or political prestige, July 2014 is to be the date of implementation then should not the base period, rather than "base year" have been fixed as from July 2013 to June 2014?

*How will pension of a Major with more than 20 years be calculated? There will be no notional or actual pay or pension data for 2013 as there will be no Officers retiring in the rank of Major in 2013 with service equal to or more than 20 years of service (They would all have become Lt Col after 13 years of service. Similarly, there would be no Lt Col retirees in 2013 with more than 26 years of service. They would minimally have received time bound promotion of Col on completing 26 years of service. How would OROP pensions of, for instance, a Major retiree with 24 years of service or a Lt Col retiree with 28 years of service be calculated?
*How will notional pension be calculated for retirees in ranks with a certain number of years of service that would place them at top of pay-bands of ranks they had retired in, as service required to reach top of current pay-band of the rank they had retired in years ago would probably correspond to up to 10 years less than the service they had put in? To, again, take the example of a pre December 2004 Lt Col retiree with 28 years of service, if his pension is not equated, as it should, with that of someone retiring in base year with equal service and promoted, on time-bound basis, to Col, then the top of scale for Lt Col pay-band would correspond to years of service less than what the Lt Col had put in. Would they then exercise some imagination to extend the pay-band for calculating his pension for the same Lt Col rank or cook up some imaginary "stagnation increment" formula rather than shifting him notionally to the pay-band of Colonel, which would be closer to reality of pensioners with same service and same rank retiring in base year?

*Even now, with the "minimum of pay in pay-

 

band" principle, there is a gradation in pension

 

tables with qualifying service. Some panel

 

discussions referred to "mean of scale" and

 

whether it should not be "top of scale" i.e.

 

notional pensions based on figures of pay for

 

these two points in the pay-band. That sounds a

 

bit too much like a "rule of thumb" process.

 

Would that not simply remove the "years of

 

service" aspect of OROP from the equation?

 

Would it, for example, equate the OROP pension

 

of a retiree with 20 years of service to that of

 

one with 30 years of service just because they

 

were in the same rank, hence the same pay-

 

band, hence the same mean, at retirement?

 

 

I would like to, again, stress here that, to my

 

mind, this issue of calculating the "average"

 

has even greater relevance than the matter of

 

periodicity of OROP reviews. Even if discussions

 

focus on bringing down the periodicity from five

 

years to three or two, the matter of the exact

 

manner of calculating pensions should receive

 

the highest priority. It is a more critical

 

component of implementation as subtle

 

variations could hugely impact results. While

 

shrill protests to the point of hoarseness over

 

"One Rank Five Pensions" are understandable,

 

maybe a bit of application of mind to the

 

"fixation methodology" is required without

 

further delay and details transparently sorted

 

out before a notification gets formalized from

 

keyboards prone to "as on/with effect from"

 

kind of anomalies