Yashpal Singh Rawat, a resident of Pauri Garhwal district retired as a Havildar from Indian Army. like most of his fellow retired soldiers he is unaware about the benefits of One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme. It is a stark reality that despite a big hype around
OROP majority of retired armed forces personnel are unaware about the provision of the scheme.
While interacting with The Pioneer the President of United Front of
Ex-Servicemen of Uttarakhand Major General Chander Nandwani (Rtd) accepted that a large number of ex-servicemen is still unaware about OROP.
In simple language OROP means that pension of all those who hold same rank and have equal years of service is same, irrespective of the year when one retires. The major difference in pensions occurred post January 01, 2006 when the sixth pay commission was implemented due to which pensions of junior officers who retired after 2006, became much more than their seniors who retired before 2006.
Another major reason of resentment among the veterans is the difference in their pensions with civilian counterparts. “ Since an army is needed to be young, a sepoy usually retires at an age of around 35 years while his civil counterpart say in State police works till 60 years of the age due to which the difference in pensions occurs, OROP aims to remove this disparity”, said Major Gen Nandwani.
Keeping the fact in mind about the relatively shorter period of service of armed forces personnel their pension was 50 per cent of last salary drawn till the year 1971 while it was 33 per cent for civilians. In the third pay commission however the pensions of all the personnel (both armed forces and civilians) was set up at 50 per cent of last salary triggering the discrepancy in the pension of armed forces. “The Government gave us the return gift of reduced pension immediately after the historic victory over Pakistan in the war of 1971”, sarcastically remarked Colonel P l Parashar (Rtd). He added that for Other Ranks (OR), the pension is only 37.8 per cent of the last salary drawn as Government mandates that the concept of 50 per cent pension would be
implemented only if one completes a service of 33 years which is impossible in the case of majority of armed forces personnel.
Brigadier K G Behl (Rtd) informed that it is surprising that there is no representative of armed forces in the pay commissions. Similarly there is no representative of armed forces in the Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare of Ministry of Defense (MOD), he added.
There are 25 lakh ex-servicemen in the country about 85 per cent of them are OR (Junior Commissioned officers and Jawans). If the OROP is implemented they would be the one who would be benefited most (see table). Apart from ex-servicemen there are around 6 lakh widows of armed forces personnel who too would be benefited if the OROP is implemented. The Patron of United Front of Ex-Servicemen (Uttarakhand) Major General lalji D Singh said that
OROP is not all about
money it is about social status as well which is at lowest ebb nowadays.