PRESS RELEASE
OPERATION MAHASANGRAM,JANTAR MANTAR
( 14 JUN 2015 )
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Sunday, June 14, 2015
OROP : PRESS RELEASE OPERATION MAHASANGRAM,JANTAR MANTAR ( 14 JUN 2015 )
PRESS RELEASE
OPERATION MAHASANGRAM,JANTAR MANTAR
( 14 JUN 2015 )
Saturday, June 13, 2015
ECHS & MILITARY HOSPITALS : Great IAS Babus Who Shall Keep On Making Anti-Soldier's Laws
if the notification BELOW is true, the officer who framed these rules should be hanged on the nearest tree or shot for endangering national security”.
MILITARY HOSPITALS AT THE MERCY OF BABUs : BABU KI MAAR - Notice put up at the Command Hospital (Western Command)
Great IAS Babus Who Shall Keep On Making Anti-Soldier's Laws
Notice put up at the Command Hospital (Western Command)
says it all. This is the latest bureaucratic salvo to pawn a soldier’s life in the name of exercising financial control, supposedly a measure to exercise political control over the military. Had one of those soldiers who participated in the operations landed in the hospital with severe wounds, he would have faced the music of the bureaucracy
NOW READ THE DETAILS
Soldiers are expendable without financial approvals and no outlays on used up soldiers – the govt policy?
June 12, 2015, 11:21 am IST V Mahalingam in In Search of Propriety | India | TOI
There is an unwritten contract between the soldiering community and the people, represented by the government of the day. Under the deal, the soldiers are expected to walk into perilous and hazardous situations unhesitatingly and be prepared to risk their life even at the cost of his family losing his support for the rest of their lives. The government on the other hand is expected to take care of the veterans, families of the soldiers and the disabled unquestioningly.
Soldiers of the Indian Army and the helicopter pilots of the Indian Air Force carried out swift and precise surgical strikes at two locations on June, 09, 2015, to inflict heavy casualties to the North East militants, pre-empting a terror attack on the Indian soil. In a country where the bureaucrat is unwilling to take a decision for fear of being implicated in a scam, the soldiers went into the operations knowing fully well that at the end of the day, they may not return alive. They set aside all considerations about their family, parents or young children that might have crossed their mind when they were ordered to participate in the operations. To them their commitment to the country was all that mattered. In a similar way, how does the government view their commitment to the soldiering community?
Notice put up at the Command Hospital (Western Command) says it all. This is the latest bureaucratic salvo to pawn a soldier’s life in the name of exercising financial control, supposedly a measure to exercise political control over the military.
Had one of those soldiers who participated in the operations landed in the hospital with severe wounds, he would have faced the music of the bureaucracy.
One more wheel inserted within the already existing ring to confuse, delay and deny legitimate medical treatment to a soldier when he lands in a hospital with pain and agony.
The serving soldiers, their families, military veterans, the disabled including the war disabled and a soldier’s widow are the ones who come to the Military Hospitals or ECHS and then get referred to Command Hospitals for specialist opinion and treatment.
The ordeal gets started after a specialist examines the patient, goes through a few important test results and prescribes medicines. The Military’s medical supply chain does not stock a number of medicines primarily on considerations of infrequent usage and cost considerations. Shortages also occur in some limited supply and frequent usage medicines. Such medicines are locally purchased within the financial powers of the Commandant of the Hospital concerned on as required basis based on the recommendations of the Specialists. Such purchases are controlled and monitored by the head of the hospital.
With the introduction of the Integrated Financial Advisor (I FA), every time a patient including those admitted in the hospital is required to be administered some medicine which is not available in the hospital’s pharmacy, the process for procurement of the medicine will have to be set in motion.
The purchase procedure envisaged will involve obtaining administrative approval of the competent authority, getting three quotations, preparation of comparative cost tables and forwarding a comprehensive case with full justification explaining the disease, the need and the urgency of the medicine’s requirement besides the quantum of medicines being sought to be purchased. This will amount to the preparation of a statement of case for onward transmission to the I FA for approval. The procedure will require an officer to process and coordinate documentation relating to medicine purchases besides a computer, printer, photocopier, additional stationery and a clerk to handle correspondence and keep a tag of the letters and files being sent around. A courier with a two wheeler would be a requirement to move letters and files from one end to the other.
The I FA cannot be expected to be a one man army. He would need a clerk and a peon to convey files and letters from his office to the other. His location in relation to the hospital and the requirement of sending files from one place to the other would have its own implications in terms of a vehicle for movement and the inevitable time delay. If the I FA is required to be located within the hospital premises, an office will have to be found for housing him and his staff and that will be at the cost of patients’ requirements, the purpose for which the space would have been constructed. One is not clear if the I FA concerned would be exclusively designated to exercise control over the hospital or will be looking after the hospital in addition to his other assignments. That will have implications on his priorities and the time required for scrutiny and according financial approval.
One cannot also expect the IFA to be a signing machine. Being accountable to his own department the IFA would definitely want to satisfy himself of the need for the said medicines besides the possibilities of administering cheaper medicines. The dosage, the quantity proposed to be purchased and the cost factor will also be a matter of his concern before according approval. Being a general cadre bureaucrat, he would neither be wiser about the disease, the treatment, medicine nor the cost.
IFA would therefore have no option but to raise queries to understand the requirement. Being a specialized subject the officer processing the medicine purchase would have to refer the file to the specialist concerned for his clarification. The onus of educating the IFA and making him understand the requirement will then fall squarely on the specialist. Thus the specialist doctor will start writing notes on the file to explain the case. Three to four cases in a day will keep the doctor sufficiently busy to subordinate and side track his primary job to the new found bureaucratic ordeal. In the process, one would have to be prepared for the file to keep moving back and forth.
Has the government taken into account the additional establishment, additional expenditure, space, time delays and its effect on the lives and comfort of patients, frustration and morale of the soldiering community, the rift that it will cause between the civil and military and the costs involved in instituting this spoke? How would all this save tax payer’s money? Would it be a mistake to call this a hare – brained initiative in the wrong direction? One thing is clear – the government trusts a junior generic bureaucrat much more than an experienced and a professional medical officer of the defence services with about 20 to 25 years of service!
As for patient, he is still in pain awaiting financial approval for the medicine. The doctors would only be distributing excuses and sympathy to keep him going. Since this procedure is also applicable to expendables, one can expect the hospitals to remain partially cleaned and dirty. Since halfhearted sanitation is not acceptable in operation theatres, essential and lifesaving operations may have to be delayed awaiting cleaning and other expendable material.
What happens if the patient dies because of the delay in the treatment or surgery? What about the pain and his physical discomfort? Who will be accountable? None need to fear because soldiers are expendable and one does not need financial sanction or approval for causing pain or expending a soldier’s life.
A soldier is tasked to assault across a minefield against an enemy entrenched in a well prepared position. He is commissioned to go on a patrol and walk into a position held by the enemy to ascertain his location, the layout of his defences, etc., as happened in the case of Captain Saurabh Kalia. No questions are asked or financial approvals obtained before launching a soldier on such risky and dangerous tasks. If unfortunately he happens to sacrifice his life in the mission or is captured as a Prisoner of War, the government shows no scruples by disowning the soldier.
Take the case of a PIL filed by Lt Gen JS Arora of 1971 fame in 1999 before the Gujarat High Court. The litigation sought that the 54 Prisoners of War believed to be in held in Pakistani jails be not treated as ‘presumed dead’ but treated as ‘on duty’ for all purposes till the notional date of their retirement so that the next of kin could receive financial benefits as applicable to a serving soldiers. The litigation also sought that the issue of release of prisoners from Pakistani jails be taken up with international institutions for justice.
Accepting his plea the High Court in 2011 directed the government to grant all service and retirement benefits to such Prisoners of War by treating them as being alive, and more importantly, directed the government to approach the International Court of Justice on the issue of non-release of our Prisoners of War. Guess what the government did?
Instead of implementing the court order, the government filed an appeal on 02 May 2012 in the Supreme Court against the Gujarat High Court ruling and obtained a stay order. Is this not iniquitous and disgraceful?
The government seems to have made up its mind to abandon the desolate families of soldiers who had died, gone missing, held as Prisoners of War or the survivors and spend no more money on them. Isn’t this the reason why though compelled to retire at an early age no ‘golden handshake’ kind of package or enhanced pensions are paid to soldiers unlike public sector or bank employees?
Will anyone in the world, excepting the suicide bomber, be prepared to risk their lives and make the supreme sacrifice knowing fully well that the government will make their families run around in circles over legitimate financial and other support after their demise?
Wouldn’t the government’s inaction to the atrocities committed on Captain Saurabh Kalia expose the reality that if something similar happens to him he too would be abandoned as in the case of Captain Kalia and his family consigned to a state of penury and misery? Can a country hope to build a motivated fighting force ready to make the supreme sacrifice with this approach of the government?
Make no mistake; we are moving the fighting forces of the country back to 1960s.
A respected bureaucrat and a nationalist MR Sivaraman, IAS, who when informed of the development states:
“As a responsible former finance secretary of the largest state in India for 5 years and the longest serving revenue secretary to the government of India with around 30 years of experience in state government, national, international and private sector finance,
if the notification is true, the officer who framed these rules should be hanged on the nearest tree or shot for endangering national security”.
He goes on to add “In my view the Chief should call for its immediate withdrawal and if they do not do so resign in protest”.
The Service Chiefs have an obligation to care for and safeguard the interests of the soldiering community. They have abdicated their responsibility by acting as a mere post office. Imagine the impression of the Chief that this inaction would have created in the minds of the rank and file. Is this good for the Army’s morale and the relationship between the commander and the commanded?
Did the Prime Minister or the defense minister order this bottleneck? I am sure they have not. Certainly this is not part of ‘Good Governance’. Who then is responsible for creating this hurdle? The political leadership needs to realize that such inappropriate actions will drown them in the discontent and anger thus generated among- st the people.
Will the Prime Minister and the defense minister initiate appropriate action to reverse the orders?
Can they do it?
Many veterans feel that though the Prime Minister has a vision, he appears to lack the ability to reign in the bureaucracy which believes that politicians come and go but they are the face of continuity and hence the real government. It is a test for the country’s leadership (which is likely to fail again).
OROP :Defence Matters - Let Down By Military Top Brass
SOURCE :
http://www.hindustantimes.com/chandigarh/defence-matters-let-down-by-military-top-brass/article1-1357767.aspx
Lt Gen Harwant Singh (Retd)
Jun 12, 2015
On the obligation of the higher command in the military towards their command, Winston Churchill wrote,
“The Indian army is not so much an arm of the executive branch as it is of the Indian people. Military professionals have a duty and an obligation to ensure that the people and political leaders are counselled and alerted to the needs and necessities of military life. This cannot be done by adhering to the notion that the military profession is a silent order of monks, isolated from the political realm.”
The British gave place of pride and honour to the military and were able to draw on the right material and create a world-class military. However,
since Independence, a concerted effort has been afoot to denigrate the military, strip it of honour and pride: the two essential prerequisites for any worthwhile military.
The fact that the intake standards into the officer cadre have fallen is obvious from the number of unsavoury incidents that have taken place in units in the recent past.
At Independence, an army man drew 70% to 75% of the last drawn pay as pension, due to the ‘X factor’, while a civil servant got 30% of the last pay drawn as pension. A brigadier drew more pension than the chief secretary of a state. A decade later, this chief secretary had the stature of a two-star general and now of an army commander.
NO ALARM RAISED
The disparity in promotion prospects, retirement age, allowances etc. between the military and civil services and their consequent effect on the sum total of emoluments when both reach the age of 60 years is too well known to be repeated. What is less known and a highly disturbing aspect of all this is that a soldier’s life expectancy is down to 61-62 years, while that of his equal in the civil services is 71-73 years. This ought to have shaken up both the nation and the military authorities. While the politician remains unconcerned, the military authorities should have raised the alarm.
Philip Mason (1906-99), an Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer, in his book, ‘A Matter of Honour,’ dilating on the long history of military defeats of armies of India, lays the blame at the door of politics and the type of governments that had grown up in India. This point about politics and the type of governments brings to mind their current state in the country.
[ HISTORICALLY AS A MATTER OF FACT INDIANS HAVE "OUT SOURCED" THE DEFENCE OF THEIR FIEFDOMS TO FOREIGN SOURCES. INDIANS HAVE NO CULTURE OF PRIDE OR SENSE TO MAINTAIN & SUSTAIN EVEN A SECOND GRADE ARMY, RATHER THEY ALWAYS HAVE MAINTAINED GANGS OF GOONDAS & MERCENARIES IN THE SHAPE OF WARLORDS LIKES.
THE INDIAN GOVERNMENTS AFTER INDEPENDENCE ARE NO BETTER, THEY ARE TRYING & WORKING VERY HARD TO DESTROY AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FIRST CLASS ARMY BY STARVING THE ARMED FORCES EVEN OF basic ARMAMENTS AT THE LOWEST END OF THE WEAPON SPECTRUM AND SIMULTANEOUSLY DESTROYING THE IZZAT & PRIDE BY REDUCING THE FORCES TO THE STATE OF "HUMILIATIONS & SOCIETAL INSULTS " Vasundhra ]
PAY COMMISSIONS
The Post-War Committee, linked the pay of civil services with that of the army, evolved the ‘New Pay Code,’ which cut down only the pay of defence services officers.
The case of defence services was taken up with the First and Second Pay Commissions not by the defence services but also by a department of the ministry of defence (MoD). The Third Pay Commission wanted the defence services to put their case directly before it. This Pay Commission was not required to go into the service conditions (‘X factor’) of the defence services for its impact on pay and allowances. The MoD came up with the contention that the “requirement of discipline in the armed forces does not permit them to put their case direct to the Pay Commission.” Service chiefs accepted this patently absurd stance of the MoD! The Pay Commission also came up with the incredulous conclusion that advantages outweigh disadvantages of service in the military.
[Open Thugee. Please ref to
https://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7881121750623742708#allposts/src=dashboard ]
DISCREPANCIES GALORE
The Sixth Pay Commission assembled about 150 officers from various services (postal, BSF, forest etc ) to work out the nittygritty of the report, but took none from the defence services. It gave higher pension to a brigadier than a Major General and other innumerable discrepancies.
One may like to find out how many defence officers have been co-opted with the Seventh Central Pay Commission for preparing its report.
[ General the answer is NIL - Vasundhra ]
That service in the armed forces has become unattractive can be seen from the fact that between 2001 and 2004, 2,000 officers in all sought release. These included two lieutenant generals, 10 major generals, 84 brigadiers and the rest lieutenant colonels and majors. This trend has continued since then.
On the issue of lowering the status of service officers, the committee of secretaries, which decides on the order of precedence recorded, “military officers had been placed unduly high in the warrant of precedence, presumably as it was considered essential for the ‘army of occupation’ to be given special status and authority.” How absurd babus could get!
OROP DELAY
The bias of the bureaucracy continues to this day and it is presently over-busy confusing the political executive on the simple issue of one rank, one pension (OROP) and its financial implications. No one raised even an eyebrow when NON FUNCTIONAL FINANCIAL UPGRADATION(NFFU) was granted to more than four dozen class-A services with its enormous financial implications.
[ In simple LINGO NFFU is "HARAM KA KAMAI" getting paid for not working - Vasundhra ]
The political executive is oblivious of the long-term adverse impact of this vacillation on the grant of OROP. There is an increasing feeling among the veterans and the serving officers that the higher echelons in the armed forces continue to fail in standing up for the troops and their officers.
Our political executive needs to carefully read what Churchill, that great architect of victory in World War 2, wrote,
“Armed forces are not like a limited company to be reconstructed from time to time as the money fluctuates. It is not an inanimate thing like a house to be pulled down or enlarged or structurally altered at the caprice of the tenant or the owner. It is a living thing. If it is bullied, it sulks, if sufficiently disturbed it will wither and dwindle and almost die and when it comes to this last serious condition, it is only revived by lots of time and money.”
How far are the Indian Defence Forces from this last stage mentioned by Churchill!
http://www.hindustantimes.com/chandigarh/defence-matters-let-down-by-military-top-brass/article1-1357767.aspx
Defence Matters:
Let Down By Military Top Brass
By
Jun 12, 2015
On the obligation of the higher command in the military towards their command, Winston Churchill wrote,
“The Indian army is not so much an arm of the executive branch as it is of the Indian people. Military professionals have a duty and an obligation to ensure that the people and political leaders are counselled and alerted to the needs and necessities of military life. This cannot be done by adhering to the notion that the military profession is a silent order of monks, isolated from the political realm.”
In India, the higher command of the military has never projected forcefully enough the needs and necessities of the military. Consequently, the military’s downward slide has continued and
the government continues to remain oblivious of the true state of national security: both in terms of wherewithal with troops and their morale.
The British gave place of pride and honour to the military and were able to draw on the right material and create a world-class military. However,
since Independence, a concerted effort has been afoot to denigrate the military, strip it of honour and pride: the two essential prerequisites for any worthwhile military.
The fact that the intake standards into the officer cadre have fallen is obvious from the number of unsavoury incidents that have taken place in units in the recent past.
At Independence, an army man drew 70% to 75% of the last drawn pay as pension, due to the ‘X factor’, while a civil servant got 30% of the last pay drawn as pension. A brigadier drew more pension than the chief secretary of a state. A decade later, this chief secretary had the stature of a two-star general and now of an army commander.
NO ALARM RAISED
The disparity in promotion prospects, retirement age, allowances etc. between the military and civil services and their consequent effect on the sum total of emoluments when both reach the age of 60 years is too well known to be repeated. What is less known and a highly disturbing aspect of all this is that a soldier’s life expectancy is down to 61-62 years, while that of his equal in the civil services is 71-73 years. This ought to have shaken up both the nation and the military authorities. While the politician remains unconcerned, the military authorities should have raised the alarm.
Philip Mason (1906-99), an Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer, in his book, ‘A Matter of Honour,’ dilating on the long history of military defeats of armies of India, lays the blame at the door of politics and the type of governments that had grown up in India. This point about politics and the type of governments brings to mind their current state in the country.
[ HISTORICALLY AS A MATTER OF FACT INDIANS HAVE "OUT SOURCED" THE DEFENCE OF THEIR FIEFDOMS TO FOREIGN SOURCES. INDIANS HAVE NO CULTURE OF PRIDE OR SENSE TO MAINTAIN & SUSTAIN EVEN A SECOND GRADE ARMY, RATHER THEY ALWAYS HAVE MAINTAINED GANGS OF GOONDAS & MERCENARIES IN THE SHAPE OF WARLORDS LIKES.
THE INDIAN GOVERNMENTS AFTER INDEPENDENCE ARE NO BETTER, THEY ARE TRYING & WORKING VERY HARD TO DESTROY AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FIRST CLASS ARMY BY STARVING THE ARMED FORCES EVEN OF basic ARMAMENTS AT THE LOWEST END OF THE WEAPON SPECTRUM AND SIMULTANEOUSLY DESTROYING THE IZZAT & PRIDE BY REDUCING THE FORCES TO THE STATE OF "HUMILIATIONS & SOCIETAL INSULTS " Vasundhra ]
PAY COMMISSIONS
The Post-War Committee, linked the pay of civil services with that of the army, evolved the ‘New Pay Code,’ which cut down only the pay of defence services officers.
The case of defence services was taken up with the First and Second Pay Commissions not by the defence services but also by a department of the ministry of defence (MoD). The Third Pay Commission wanted the defence services to put their case directly before it. This Pay Commission was not required to go into the service conditions (‘X factor’) of the defence services for its impact on pay and allowances. The MoD came up with the contention that the “requirement of discipline in the armed forces does not permit them to put their case direct to the Pay Commission.” Service chiefs accepted this patently absurd stance of the MoD! The Pay Commission also came up with the incredulous conclusion that advantages outweigh disadvantages of service in the military.
[Open Thugee. Please ref to
https://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7881121750623742708#allposts/src=dashboard ]
DISCREPANCIES GALORE
The Sixth Pay Commission assembled about 150 officers from various services (postal, BSF, forest etc ) to work out the nittygritty of the report, but took none from the defence services. It gave higher pension to a brigadier than a Major General and other innumerable discrepancies.
One may like to find out how many defence officers have been co-opted with the Seventh Central Pay Commission for preparing its report.
[ General the answer is NIL - Vasundhra ]
That service in the armed forces has become unattractive can be seen from the fact that between 2001 and 2004, 2,000 officers in all sought release. These included two lieutenant generals, 10 major generals, 84 brigadiers and the rest lieutenant colonels and majors. This trend has continued since then.
On the issue of lowering the status of service officers, the committee of secretaries, which decides on the order of precedence recorded, “military officers had been placed unduly high in the warrant of precedence, presumably as it was considered essential for the ‘army of occupation’ to be given special status and authority.” How absurd babus could get!
OROP DELAY
The bias of the bureaucracy continues to this day and it is presently over-busy confusing the political executive on the simple issue of one rank, one pension (OROP) and its financial implications. No one raised even an eyebrow when NON FUNCTIONAL FINANCIAL UPGRADATION(NFFU) was granted to more than four dozen class-A services with its enormous financial implications.
[ In simple LINGO NFFU is "HARAM KA KAMAI" getting paid for not working - Vasundhra ]
The political executive is oblivious of the long-term adverse impact of this vacillation on the grant of OROP. There is an increasing feeling among the veterans and the serving officers that the higher echelons in the armed forces continue to fail in standing up for the troops and their officers.
Our political executive needs to carefully read what Churchill, that great architect of victory in World War 2, wrote,
“Armed forces are not like a limited company to be reconstructed from time to time as the money fluctuates. It is not an inanimate thing like a house to be pulled down or enlarged or structurally altered at the caprice of the tenant or the owner. It is a living thing. If it is bullied, it sulks, if sufficiently disturbed it will wither and dwindle and almost die and when it comes to this last serious condition, it is only revived by lots of time and money.”
How far are the Indian Defence Forces from this last stage mentioned by Churchill!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- WARNING & APPEAL
- TO MODI JI
AS HUMBLE VETERANS
&
SOLDIERS WE CAN ONLY APPEAL
TO
YOUR CONSCIENCE
Please don't abet the Power Drunk Forces to
MAKE HISTORY OF INDIA
to
LOOK LIKE TIME- LINE REPLICA OF
THE DESTRUCTIONs OF THE
SOMNATH TEMPLE
BEING A GUJRATI
YOU WILL UNDERSTAND
WHAT I AM SAYING
- Vasundhra
OROP :THE OROP IMBROGLIO
SOURCE:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-orop-imbroglio/92946.html
THE OROP IMBROGLIO
By
Lt Gen Raj Kadyan (Retd)
THE PRIME MINISTER NEEDS TO TAKE A CALL
For an emerging global power it is an unhappy spectacle to see its veterans holding a public protest
One rank, one pension’, or its acronym OROP, is a household term today. Even those who do not understand its nuances know that some issue called OROP is stuck. This is an update on its status.
The concept of OROP first surfaced in the early 1980s. Retired Maj Gen RS 'Sparrow', then a Member of Parliament, explained it in the House in very plain terms. The then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, understood and immediately ordered a committee to examine the issue. Unfortunately, before the scheme could be implemented, Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Since then OROP has been on a simmer, consistently opposed by the bureaucracy and denied by successive governments. In 2008, in the wake of the Sixth Pay Commission report coming out, we raised the Indian Ex Servicemen Movement and gave OROP a renewed impetus.
It is neither good for the country nor is it in the military ethos to air one's demands in public. We explored every possibility to avoid taking to the streets. This writer personally met the Prime Minister in April 2008 and implored him to treat OROP with due urgency. Unfortunately, he showed no inclination. When every attempt failed to move the government, the first public demonstration was held on April 27, 2008. After that there was no looking back. The protests included even depositing our hard-earned medals; over 20,000 of these are still lying in a government store.
What is OROP? It is payment of the same pension to military retirees of the same rank and same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement. Further, any future enhancement in pension is to be automatically passed on to the old pensioners. This definition stands accepted by the Koshyari Committee and both the UPA government and the NDA have accepted it on the floor of the House. Based on two simple parameters of rank and total length of service, this definition is easy to understand and implement. Besides, it has the widest acceptance.
And why are only the military pensioners demanding it? It needs to be remembered that pensions are increased during pay commissions constituted every 10 years. As of now this enhancement is given only prospectively. The gap between the old and new pensions keeps increasing.
The defence forces are required to keep a youthful profile. Its members are therefore retired early. Nearly 85% of military personnel are sent home before they reach the age of 40. It is not difficult to visualise the mental trauma one suffers on being thrown out of a job when one's financial needs are at their peak. There isn't and cannot be any compensation for this. At least in financial terms there should be some recompense. A defence retiree on an average sees four to five pay commissions in his life time and suffers the widening gap severally. OROP is designed to keep his pension equated with the new retirees and thus give him at least some relief in financial terms.
Where does OROP stand now? After our protest had gone on for close to six years, the then Finance Minister announced its grant on February 17, 2014. The scheme was to take effect from April 1, 2014. It has been nearly 16 months but OROP has still not been implemented. The BJP had included the grant of OROP in its manifesto during the 2014 general election. Besides, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared his government’s commitment on OROP at many public meetings. He also repeated it in his recent interview to The Tribune and during his 'Man ki Baat' radio broadcast on May 31, 2015. After a joint meeting between the Service Headquarters and the Ministry of Defence in February 2015 modalities based on the accepted definition were worked out. The Defence Minister has reportedly approved it. The total annual financial outlay comes to nearly Rs 8,300 crore.
It is learnt that the Finance Ministry has raised some objections. One possible change they wish to insert is to base OROP on service in the last rank held instead of total service as it would bring down the annual expenditure to some Rs 5,400 crore rupees. However, this would not be just and fair. The promotions of Junior Commissioned Officers and below, who constitute 96% of the total strength, are decentralised to a unit level and are subject to the availability of vacancies. In one unit ‘A’may be promoted Havildar in 16 years while in another unit 'B' may take 20 years. Since Havildars retire at a fixed service of 24 years, ‘A’ would have earned relatively higher salary for four additional years. If the criterion of service in the last rank is followed, 'A' would also get a higher pension for a life time; a double whammy for 'B'. Even among officers, a junior often picks up his higher rank ahead of a senior due to various administrative constraints and the same problem would occur. The criterion of service in the last rank therefore is grossly unjust and will not find acceptance among the pensioners.
There has also been talk recently of the Central Police Forces demanding OROP. They are our own people and not adversaries. But the early retirement, the only plank on which OROP demand rests, is not applicable to them. Let me repeat what I had told the Prime Minister in 2008 when he raised the same apprehension: “Let all defence employees be kept in government service till the age of 60 like everyone else. We will then not need OROP”.
The veterans have full faith in the Prime Minister's assurance and are certain OROP will come. However, the date of its final implementation remains in the penumbra. With the inordinate delay the veterans are getting edgy. They have already announced the restart of their protest from June 14. For an emerging global power it would be an unhappy spectacle to see its veterans holding a public protest. The Prime Minister needs to take a call. Urgently.
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