Not satisfied with the Government version of One Rank One Pension (OROP), the United Front of Ex Servicemen (UFES) of Uttarakhand would take out a candle light march in state capital on Saturday.
The spokesperson of the UFES, Uttarakhand, Brigadier K G Behl (Rtd) said that the armed forces veterans would assemble at Gandhi Park on Saturday and would march to the ‘Kargil War memorial’ with lighted candles. “The veterans would observe two minutes silence to pay tributes to the martyrs. Thanks will be given to the Government for sanctioning OROP, however the unresolved points would also be highlighted. Since nothing has come so far in black and white so far unnecessary fears are being created and as such the government should issue the notification immediately”, he said.
On Thursday a delegation of UFES, Uttarakhand left Dehradun to head for Delhi to join the rally being held at Jantar Mantar on Saturday. The delegation included
Maj Gen lallji D Singh (Rtd), Col G.S.Cheema (Rtd), Maj Hari Choudhary (Rtd), Capt. Yudhavir Singh Bisht (Rtd), Nayab Sub Sultan Singh Rana (Rtd) and Riflemen Mahendra Singh Bhandari (Rtd) from Dehradun.
The ex servicemen are not convinced by the revision of pension after every five years and demand that it should be done on Yearly basis. They believe that the government is under wrong impression that yearly revision would be a mammoth task. They also want that the confusion on the premature retirees should also be dispelled similarly the idea of taking mean of higher and lower pension for OROP is also not acceptable to ESMs, they consider it as against the basic norm of OROP which implies that pension of all those who hold same rank and have equal years of service is same, irrespective of the year when one retires.