The issue of One Rank One Pension (OROP) continues to haunt the Government. Having lost patience over the long wait for OROP, the ex-servicemen on Saturday announced that the talks between them and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar over the scheme have failed and they are going ahead with their planned rally on June 14.
The rally will be followed by a relay hunger strike to protest the delay in implementation of OROP. The ex-servicemen wanted a definite date from the Government for the scheme’s implementation, which the Centre is reluctant to announce. Besides, Parrikar, the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) delegation also met Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag to press their demand.
“Though Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar understood our problem and argument, he did not give any date for the implementation of OROP. Hence, we are going ahead with our agitation,” Maj Gen Satbir Singh, chairman of IESM said. The retired Defence personnel had decided that they would call off their proposed agitation if Parrikar agreed to implement OROP by July 15.
The ex-servicemen group has also written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention. Singh said there is a hope that Modi will make an announcement soon. But till that is done, the IESM wants to keep the pressure up on Government.
Parrikar has maintained that the Government has completed all formalities and OROP will be implemented soon. The Army chief, while addressing ex-servicemen on March 14, had said that OROP would be approved latest by April 30. “Since December last, we have met Parrikar four times and every time he said it would be implemented in a week or so,” Singh said. According to sources, the OROP file has gone to the Finance Ministry for budgetary approval.
OROP seeks to ensure that a uniform pension is paid to the Defence personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement. Close to 22 lakh ex-servicemen and over six lakh war widows stand to be the immediate beneficiaries of the scheme.
Recently in an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Major (retired) Dr Surendar Poonia stated, “We have continued to ignore the plight of these brave men of ours who have dedicated their lifetime to our nation and rather than reward them we relish in slighting and spiting them, time and again. Are their pleas for OROP unwarranted and unreasonable, or as the polity and bureaucracy believes that once retired , the veteran soldiers of ours are expendables and can be meted with derision and disdainIJ” Poonia served with Special Forces of Indian Army as a combatant and medical officer and a sportsman.
Meanwhile, in Kolkata, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi continued to attack the Government for the delay. “Money was given for the OROP for the ex-jawans of the Army during the UPA regime. Before the (lok Sabha) elections, Modiji went to Punjab, Haryana, everywhere and promised that he will implement it within one year if his Government came to power. Now, the Armymen are crying. They are holding agitation and demanding that a date should be given for implementing it”, Rahul said.