The United Front of Ex-Servicemen (UFESM) of Uttarakhand has decided not to celebrate Diwali in protest against the Government's version of One Rank One Pension (OROP).
The office bearers of the association organised a meeting here on Tuesday and decided that the armed force veterans would congregate at Parade ground on November 16 and return their medals to vent their anger against the decision of the Union Government. The spokesperson of Uttarakhand USEM, Colonel Pl Parashar (Rtd) told The Pioneer that veterans are not happy with the dilution of concept of OROP in the notification of Union Govt.
The Union Government had notified the OROP on Saturday and the Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar has cleared his intention of not yielding more than what is given to ex-servicemen on OROP.
Col Parashar (Rtd) said that the Uttarakhand unit of USEM is united in its opposition of the Government's version. "What is given is not OROP, let the Govt accept that it is one time pension enhancement and not OROP as promised," he said. The ex-servicemen are annoyed on the provisions like revising the pension after every five years and taking the mean of highest and lowest pension for deciding on the amount of Pension.
The veterans said that though the Govt has decided to give benefit of OROP to those who have voluntarily retired from the service but also had added a clause that those retiring voluntarily after Nov 6 this year would not be eligible for this benefit. "This decision would affect the morale of serving armed forces personnel and would create problems in command and control system of forces," said one a retired officer.
One of leading figure of the USEM, Brigadier RS Rawat (Rtd) said that the basic objective of OROP is not served in the Govt's version. The OROP implies uniform pension to persons retiring on the same rank with the same of length of service notwithstanding their date of retirement. The scheme is expected to put up a burden of more than `8000 to `10,000 Crores on the national exchequer.