On a day the veterans announced their decision to intensify their agitation for One Rank, One Pension (OROP) after the Government failed to implement the much-awaited welfare scheme within their deadline, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Tuesday. This meeting comes as ex-servicemen have given a seven-day notice to the centre to grant OROP. They will also hold a rally in poll-bound Bihar next month to press their demand.
Announcing their plan of action, the former soldiers said here that since the government has failed to implement OROP which will benefit more than 23 lakh veterans and six lakh widows they will “regretfully heighten” their agitation. Scores of former soldiers, at present, are on relay hunger strike for the last one month at Jantar Mantar.
Spearheading the agitation, the United Front of Ex-Servicemen (UFESM) will also boycott all government functions. Addressing a news conference here, their leader lt. General Balbir Singh(retired) said the peaceful agitation will spread to 640 districts of the country. He also claimed that soldiers are paid the pension of a peon and that “peons cannot stand on the Siachen.”
Singh said the definition of the OROP as agreed in Parliament should not be diluted adding that the definition was laid down in 2011 by the Rajya Sabha Committee on a petition then headed by Bhagat Singh Koshiyari of BJP. The definition prescribed the formula of the OROP and mentioned the benchmark to decide the pensions, he said.