SC asks Centre to fulfil one rank, one pension promise in 3 months

The Supreme Court has directed the Centre to implement its six-year-old verdict to follow the one rank, one pension (OROP) principle for retired armed forces personnel, reminding the BJP government that it had promised to do so in the run-up to last year’s Lok Sabha elections.
A bench of justices TS Thakur and AK Goel warned the government of contempt if it failed to abide by its order within three months.
“We make it clear that no further time will be granted for the purpose of implementation of the judgment,” the bench told additional solicitor general Pinky Anand who assured the bench that modalities would be worked out till then.
“This was part of your manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections. You must keep your word,” justice Thakur reminded Anand while hearing a contempt petition filed by retired Major General SPS Vains who dragged the defence ministry to court demanding the OROP scheme.
Armed forces personnel holding the same rank will get the same pension, regardless of the last drawn pay, years of service and the years served in a particular rank, under the OROP scheme.
Vains’s counsel, senior advocate Nidhesh Gupta, said the government wasn’t doing charity since there was a court order in his clients’ favour. “We have a judgment. It has been six years and we are still waiting,” Gupta told the court.
He later told HT, “Before this judgment came, there was disparity among retired armed forces personnel receiving pensionary benefits that were calculated as per their pay-scale. So a major general, who retired before 1996 when the fifth pay commission was introduced, drew pension lower than not just a similarly ranked officer who retired post-1996 but also a brigadier, colonel and a lieutenant colonel. The 2008 judgment brought everyone at par as the verdict said there should be no classification due to the date of retirement.”
Successive governments in the past have opposed OROP on the grounds that it would not be financially feasible.
However, the Modi government has promised to implement the policy that will benefit around 25 lakh ex-servicemen. OROP for the armed forces is likely to be part of the Union budget and could be implemented soon. 
http://www.hindustantimes.com/ 

OROP LATEST NEWS BY IESM

Dear Members

Further to the information given in the report of rally held on 1 Feb 15. On 1 Feb 15 a delegation of 30 ESM including four veernaris met RM at Kotah house. RM had promised to take action on OROP latest by 17 Feb 15. 

IESM has a good news for you. Your dream of OROP has moved a step closer to its approval. 

As promised by RM to IESM delegation that he will personally monitor the progress on OROP.  True to his promise he has chaired a meeting today of OROP action committee. The meeting was attended by CGDA,DESW, MOD and Army pay cell Maj Gen Aggarwal and Col Pruthi. Col Rathore also attended the meeting. It is confirmed that OROP file has finally reached MOD.

Following decisions have been taken in the meeting today 17 Feb 15.  

1. OROP will be as per approved definition.
2. In most of cases ESM will get fixed at highest of their rank pay band. 
3. OROP equalization will be done annually. 
4. Some issues of Major's pension are under discussion and will be sorted out soon.  

 RM gave special instructions to Gen Aggarwal to inform Gen Satbir singh about this development. Gen Aggarwal informed IESM asap he came out of the meeting. File is under final scrutiny and preparation and file will be dispatched to MOF on 23 Feb as RM is going to attend Annual Aero Show at Bangaluru from 17 to 22 Feb.

CGDA has already issued circular no 536 giving increase in pension of widows w.e.f. 24 Sep 12. This circular fixes the pension of widow at 60% of the pension of the ESM as given in circular 500. Widows will get this enhanced pension from 24 Sep 2012. They will further get arrears from 1 Jan 2006 as and when the MOD issues such instructions. 

Dear Members hold your celebration till budget. We will finally come to know how much funds get allotted for OROP in this years budget and will raise a toast for OROP on that day.

IESM salutes sincerity of RM Sh Manohar Parrikar. He is a man of his words. He had promised action on OROP by 17 Feb and he has executed it. 

Regards
Gp Capt VK Gandhi VSM
Gen Sec IESM
Block N5, Flat no 801

Narmada Block

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New Delhi. 110070
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ACHEY DIN FOR ESM AYEGA?

Achchey Din seems likely to dawn on the armed forces, or ex-personnel in particular. The government is giving final shape to their long standing demand of adopting One-Rank One-Pension (OROP).
Bureaucrats are currently burning midnight oil to pore over the fine print of at least four options to implement the OROP scheme. A source in government, aware of the developments, says a decision is expected soon and a large provision in the Budget, or soon after.
"We are very hopeful that the long overdue injustice to the armed forces will be reversed in this budget," says Maj Gen Satbir Singh (Retd) who leads the IESM or Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement, which lobbied intensely for OROP since 2008. "Both UPA and NDA have agreed to our OROP so we see no reason that it will be held back now," he says.
For 40 years the retirees, now numbering three million, have been bristling under what they perceive as "neglect and humiliation" by political parties and successive governments. Its extreme manifestation, from their perspective, was the denial of OROP. Lack of empirical data on the cost of this pension, plus political reluctance of the parties fuelled much of the denial and delay. The former military staff launched public agitations to make their case, often embarrassing the government.
Regardless of which of the four options the government decides upon ultimately, the roughly Rs 8,000 crore likely to be set aside for OROP should go a long way to calm the angry (wo)men in uniform, besides providing them a lifestyle befitting the status, say, one that a retired colonel or brigadier enjoys.
One choice before the government, says the same government source, is to do exactly as the ex-servicemen want: Give future and past retirees of the same rank from the Army, Navy and Air Force exactly the same pension. Essentially, this means that all Brigadiers or, say, Air Vice Marshals, would get the same pension regardless of when they retired, taking into account only their years in service and the number of years they held the rank. This formula, a literal interpretation of the phrase One-Rank One-Pension, has been accepted by government committees, including the Parliamentary Standing Committee on defence.
For instance, a colonel with 30-32 years of service, whose basic pay was around Rs. 26,000 before 2004 would have earned around Rs. 37,000 in 2014. OROP is expected to bridge the pension gap that arises due to this pay discrepancy. "Our demand is very simple: Today's pension for all previous retirees," says Singh.
But the government's estimates of cost of this pension have it pedalling back a little. Taking 2012 as the cut-off date, giving past retirees hikes that bring them on par with the highest pension paid to that rank in 2012, would cost a whopping Rs 16,000 crore, they argue. This has prompted a hunt for other options, meant to "balance" the exchequer with meeting armed force expectations.
A second option involves fixing the pension for pre-2006 retirees according to the 6th Pay Commission. Then, the government may pull a trick out of its hat and select the lowest pension paid since 2006 as the norm for older retirees. A version of this formula is already under implementation for Junior Commissioned Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and other ranks. It's possible this formula, with some tweaks, will be accepted, and result in the roughly Rs 8,000 crore allocation.
"It's obvious OROP is going to happen," says this government official. The discussions, this person says, is now in its final stage. There was a third choice, which involved bringing all ex-servicemen on par with the basic pay of the 6th Pay Commission, then calculate each retiree's pension individually, taking into account each one's years in service and length of time spent in the rank. This option is an "administrative nightmare" dogged, reportedly, by unavailable past data with the Controller of Defence Accounts, a wing of the ministry of defence. The lack of data is also a clear sign that the OROP debate has been based on weak databases and much groping in the dark.
A fourth and final option is where pension is to be fixed on the basis of an average or median. Separate groups of retirees who superannuated in bands of years, say, between 1990 and 2000, would be made. Those earning a pension below the average would get an enhanced pension, while the rest would be protected. This option, apparently easy to implement, is technically not OROP at all as it implies a different pension for retirees in the same rank, if they retired at different points of time.
The defence forces are mounting tremendous pressure on the government to ensure OROP isn't watered down. Earlier this month, they questioned defence minister Manohar Parrikar for saying that OROP would satisfy them "80 per cent." Their vociferous protest had the government assure full satisfaction. In 2009, angry retired armed personnel signed a petition in their own blood for then President Pratibha Patil. Reeling under such tough tactics, the UPA finally accepted OROP in 2012. But the Rs. 500 crore for it in last year's interim budget presented by finance minister P Chidambaram was seen as woefully inadequate. The veterans switched sides, now pinning their hopes on to the BJP's then prime minister-aspirant, Narendra Modi.
Five lakh ex-servicemen had assembled last spring at Rewari, on the outskirts of Delhi, to hear Modi promise OROP, should his party form the government. Behind the scenes, the ex-servicemen had already got an assurance from the party to consider their demand and publicly announce it, as a precondition for pulling in the spectacular crowd in Rewari. "For years we had requested, protested and demanded OROP. In 2014 we realised what would make a difference to politicians—votes. With our strength and influence over the village population, we could swing elections in many places," Gen (retd) Singh says.
OROP is an issue which could trip the BJP. It considers and projects itself as a fiercely nationalist party, a narrative meaningless without a robust national defence policy. It can scarcely afford to disappoint the defence forces. Nevertheless, the different versions of OROP indicate just how conflicted the issue is. The ex-servicemen never agreed that OROP will cost the Rs. 16000 predicted by the bureaucracy. They still hope for a Rs. 9000-12000 crore allocation for full OROP. The usually docile military retirees started getting heated up only after 2006. That year, the Sixth Pay Commission hiked central government pay significantly, to counter the private sector's fantastic offers to the similarly educated. As pension is always a proportion of salary, after this hike, the gap between pensions of ex-servicemen who retired before and after 2006 grew wider. Most jawans retire in their mid-thirties, and only an eighth of officers rise beyond the rank of colonel. The belief that the army would never catch up with the civil services' benefits also grew.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Achchey-Din 

AAP Manifesto includes One Rank One Pension issue

Just a day after defeating the might of Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Delhi Assembly elections, Chief Minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal today asked Delhi Chief Secretary D M Spolia to prepare a road map for implementation of Aam Aadmi Party‘s (AAP) 70-point manifesto which includes Ex-serviceman's issues at Sl. 64.  

64. Respecting Our Ex-Servicemen: Delhi is home to a large number of ex-servicemen and women from the Armed Forces. AAP will stand by the nation’s ex-servicemen in their fight for “One Rank, One Pension”. We will ensure the existing quota in government jobs for ex-servicemen is filled up.

Time for PM to review Army pension

The Armed Forces personnel pension scheme is obsolete and needs to be upgraded to become fair to the brave hearts of India.

V. Mahalingam  New Delhi | 31st Jan 2015

By being a mere spectator when 800 odd appeals filed by the Ministry of Defence against its own disabled soldiers came up for hearing in the Supreme Court, the government lost a great opportunity to demonstrate to the people that when it comes to good governance he means business and is determined to walk the talk. It was an opportunity to assert the supremacy of an elected government, which for the past 10 years seemed powerless and conquered by coalition politics. It was an opportunity to indicate to the people that frivolous court cases and delays resulting in injustices to the disabled, the old and infirm will not be allowed to go through and the government would be fair to the people. That would have provided credibility to promises made in various forums and public speeches. Sadly, that was not to be. The Supreme Court instead had to step in to set aside the appeals of the government during a hearing on 10 December 2014. A situation, which ought to have generated good will, and should have been exploited to consolidate his position, was lost. Agreed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not have been aware that such a case was coming up and it needed his intervention. But what were his team of bureaucrats doing? By now they ought to have read his mind and his intentions on matters of governance. Someone should have briefed him on the issue, got his directions and conveyed the same to the Ministry of Defence for instantaneous withdrawal of the cases. Files could have been pushed around subsequently. That is how we expect the Modi government to work. Today, yet another situation has matured sufficiently for PM Modi to act. The erstwhile UPA government, as a part of the interim budget presented in Parliament in February 2014, announced the grant of One Rank One Pension (OROP). The Modi government reaffirmed their commitment to the policy in their budget presented in July 2014 and subsequently confirmed the definition in an answer to a Parliament question. PM Modi had repeatedly assured the veteran community of his commitment to OROP during his election campaigns and his visits to various defence establishments. The definition of OROP is unambiguous. It is "uniform pension to be paid to the Armed Forces personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service irrespective of their date of retirement and any future enhancement in the rates of pension to be automatically passed on to the past pensioners." Does this not simply mean that a soldier with the same rank and service retiring today and the one who retired say 10 years before would receive the same pension? Despite the clarity in the policy, even after 11 months, the government machinery has not been able to work out the financial implication of the scheme — so say the government representatives. The Defence Minister says that though his own assessment of the cost to the exchequer is about six to eight thousand crores, the computation by various government agencies is anything between eight and fourteen thousand crores. In a computer age, are we to accept such discrepancies? The calculations of these agencies have not been provided to the Defence Services or made public. Does this fit into established concepts of efficiency and fair play in governance? We expect a clear difference between the earlier government and the present one headed by Narendra Modi‎ New factors such as the length of service of an individual in a particular rank are being brought in and attempts are being made to insert in already thrashed out issues such as "civilians too would demand OROP" to spook the politicians. Where is the space for such incongruous issues within the scope of the definition spelt out in Parliament? Are such people not trying to delay, dilute and deny justice to the soldiering community at the sunset years of their lives after they have sacrificed so much for the country during their prime, without even caring for their families and children? A year is much more than good enough time to implement an explicit government policy. We expect PM Modi to step in to set things right. This opportunity must be made use of to send a clear message to the bureaucracy that its role is to implement government policies and the will of Parliament and not sit in judgement over them. Harsh measures will have to be accepted if the country is to progress and an elected government's eminence restored. Will justice finally be done to India's bravehearts in uniform? It is to PM Modi they look. Brigadier (Retired) V. Mahalingam is a defence analyst

MILITARY PENSION SCALES AS RECOMMENDED BY SERVICE HQ