Congress Deputy leader in the lok Sabha Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s contention that the issue of One Rank One Pension (OROP) was too complex to be resolved soon. He told Modi if he could dole out one billion dollars to a country like Mongolia, why was he denying OROP to the ex-servicemen.
“Yes, their patience is running out and you are responsible for that,” he told Modi, while reacting to his appeal to the ex-servicemen to have patience, during his monthly radio address on Sunday.
“The Prime Minister should better have announced a date to implement the OROP instead of dishing out vague assurances,” Capt Amarinder remarked, while reminding him that much against his ignorant claims that previous governments were playing politics on the issue for last 40 years, the UPA Government had already implemented the decision in 2014 and his (Modi’s) Government only needed to follow it up which unfortunately it was not.
He said that it was a matter of Rs9,100 crore only. “Does this amount really make it too complex to be resolvedIJ” he asked the Prime Minister while adding, instead of advising the ex-servicemen to be patient, he should figure out the bureaucratic hurdles being created towards implementation.
Capt Amarinder asked Modi if he can dole out Rs6,000 crore aid to a country like Mongolia, why can’t he grant One Rank One Pension to ex-servicemen who have given their entire life to the country by spending most part of it guarding the borders. “Prime Minister either appears to be ignorant, or is deliberately trying to molly-coddle our 25 lakh ex-servicemen by his mere sweet talk”, he observed while adding that Modi neither identified the so called complexities involved in the issue, nor did he make any time bound commitment.