Clearing the air on the controversy surrounding ‘One Rank, One Pension’ (OROP) for ex-servicemen, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that servicemen who retired prematurely will be entitled to all the benefits of the scheme.
Speaking at the Gati Pragati Rally in Faridabad, the Prime Minister said, “90 per cent of our Army personnel are soldiers who hold junior posts and fight from the front lines. They have to retire after 15-17 years to keep the average age of the Army low. These jawans have the first right on OROP and they would be the first to benefit from it.”
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had on Saturday announced the seven-point agenda for implementation of the much-awaited OROP scheme for ex-servicemen. While welcoming the announcement, the agitating veterans had rejected six of the seven clauses, including that of “no OROP benefits to personnel who take pre-mature retirement”.
Taking a dig at the Congress for trying to mislead the armed forces on OROP, Modi said those, who did nothing for the last 40 years on the issue, have no right to speak on behalf of war veterans. "Those, who didn't do anything for these jawans for the last 40 years have no right to question us,” said Modi.
Criticising the Opposition for indulging in obstructionist politics, Modi said, “It has become a fashion these days to oppose any good decision taken by the Government and to stop the nation from moving forward. There is no bigger insult to the nation and to the democratic process than that.”
Talking about the difficulties in implementing the scheme, Modi said, “The matter of OROP is almost 42 years old. Many Governments came and went in those 42 years, but the issue could not get resolved.”
“All the Governments showed sympathy with the cause and the ex-servicemen, but no one could implement OROP because of the many problems it entailed. I faced those problems as well as it is not an easy task… But we promised to implement OROP and now we are fulfilling it,” Modi said.
Indicating the reason for the delay in implementation of OROP, the Prime Minister said that the previous Government estimated the amount required for the implementation of this scheme at around Rs 500 crore. "We went into deeper into the issue and realised that it is not a 500 crore issue. Estimate came to around Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 crore," the PM said.
On the ex-servicemen's demand of five-member judicial commission to look into the issues of retireees, the Prime Minister said that Government's proposed one-member commission is just to address any shortcomings in the implementation of the scheme. "I want to assure our armed forces that this is not any pay commission. The purpose of this commission would simply be to address any shortcomings and to observe if any minor changes are needed to implement the scheme," said PM Modi.
During his address, the PM also said that his Government came to power on May 26, 2014 and it was since then that his responsibility started to fulfil the promise he made at his first rally as the prime ministerial candidate in Rewari.
"Our Government was born on May 26 and we started working on the issue from that very day. That's why we announced the scheme to be effective from July 1," he said.