Force veterans in pension sulk

The Telegraph- Kolkata SUJAN DUTTA

New Delhi, July 6: Officers in the armed forces were today unhappy that they were ignored despite the Rs 2,100-crore payout for pensioners that Pranab Mukherjee announced on the recommendation of a panel that studied the demand from veterans for “one rank one pension”.

Military veterans have been demanding equal pension to soldiers of the same rank with the same length of service since the early 1980s.

This May, after many representations to the government, the Indian Ex-Servicemen Association asked its members to “return” their merit and gallantry medals as a mark of protest. Nearly 13,000 medals were deposited at Rashtrapati Bhavan after that call. The Centre then asked the cabinet secretary to look into the demand.

Mukherjee said today the Rs 2,100-crore payout would benefit over 12 lakh personnel below officer rank — soldiers and junior commissioned officers (JCO). These are soldiers who retired as sepoy, naik, havildar, subedar, naib subedar and subedar major (and their equivalents in the navy and the air force).

A subedar major who retired after January 2006 — a JCO at the top of the scale among the personnel below officer rank (PBOR) — draws a pension of Rs 10,795 a month. There are over 24 lakh ex-servicemen in the country.

Mukherjee said the Centre would hike the amount given to personnel below officer rank who retired before 2006. The amount would also be used to bring PBOR pensioners in two categories — those who retired before October 10, 1997, and after that— on a par.

“This is not an acceptance of our demand for one rank one pension,” Major General (retired) Satbir Singh, the vice-chairman of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Association, said.

“It is merely a bridging of the gap for pensioners who retired before October 1997 and after that. And this also does not apply to officers. If one rank one pension is meant to be given only to the other (non-officer) ranks, it is a serious negative fallout (of the demand that we have made).”

Serving officers do not speak out on government decisions because rules forbid them to. But it is widely acknowledged that the ex-servicemen association’s demands are supported by serving and retired personnel.

Allocations retained
Mukherjee today retained February’s interim allocations for the armed forces in his budget for 2009-2010. The allocations were a 34 per cent hike over 2008-2009. The total budgetary outlay for defence is Rs 1,41,703 crore (compared to Rs 1,05,600 crore in 2008-2009).

The air force gets a capital outlay for new and continuing acquisitions of Rs 19,959.22 crore, about Rs 3,000 crore more than in 2008-2009; the army gets Rs 17,767.85 crore, a hike of Rs 6,637 crore over the last fiscal; and the navy Rs 11,873.78 crore, including a hike of Rs 2858.53 crore, for expansion of its fleet.