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One Rank One Pension promise in peril? – Times of India Article

One Rank One Pension promise in peril?
Nalin Mehta,TNN | Dec 14, 2014, 06.18 AM IST
Military veterans claim babus are thwarting PM Modi’s poll pledge of one-rank-one-pension by inflating its cost estimates
Roman emperor Augustus started the tradition of military pensions in 13 BC, when every legionary who had fought 20 years for Rome was guaranteed a pension for-life. It set the bar for modern armies, and independent India continued the British tradition of financially privileging military service until the mid-1970s, when soldiers were paid more than civilian bureaucrats, in service and after retirement. All that changed with the Third Pay Commission, which brought military salaries in line with civil services, and while soldiers have long complained about political control over the military in independent India mutating into bureaucratic control, a row over the NDA’s promise for one-rank-one-pension (OROP) for military veterans is raising questions about the government’s ability to translate its intent into action.

Fifteen months after Narendra Modi first demanded it immediately after being anointed the BJP’s PM candidate, 10 months after the UPA government granted it, five months after NDA’s finance minister Arun Jaitley confirmed it and almost two months after the PM told soldiers in Siachen that it was his “destiny that onerank-one pension has been fulfilled”, military veterans are questioning why the promise has still not been implemented.

Number games

Put simply, OROP means that every pension-eligible soldier who retires in a particular rank deserves the same pension, irrespective of date of retirement. Currently, soldiers who left the armed forces more recently receive more than those who did earlier, because successive pay commissions hiked salaries. Two days after he was anointed BJP’s PM-candidate in September 2013, Modi vehemently supported the OROP demand at a veterans’ rally in Rewari. With roughly 12 lakh veterans also constituting a huge vote-bank, UPA government approved the demand in February 2014, and it was reaffirmed by NDA in July, when finance minister Arun Jaitley specifically provisioned Rs 1,000 crore in his 2014-15 budget (within an overall defence pensions budget of Rs 51,000 crore). Yet, it remains stuck in bureaucratic wrangling.

PAY OR PLAY

Until 1973 9 Sep 2009 May 2010 19 Dec 2011 15 Sep 2013
Armed forces had OROP and higher pay than civilian counterparts. Third Pay Commission reversed this and equated military pay with civilian pay Supreme Court: “No Defence Personnel Senior in rank can get lesser pension than his junior irrespective of the date of retriement” and “Similarly placed officers of the same rank are to be given the same pension irrespective of the date of retirement Standing Committee on Defence2009-10, 7th Report recommends holistic implementation of OROP Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions, 142nd Report, headed by BJP MP Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, recommends OROP implementation Modi, at his first rally after being chosen BJP‘s PM candidate, demands ‘white paper’ on status of OROP, says Vajpayee would have implemented if he had returned to power in 2004
17 Feb 2014 10 July 24 Oct 2 Dec 12 Dec
UPA govt announces grnat of OROP in interim budget 2014-15, puts aside Rs.500 crore NDA govt in 2014-15 budget reaffirms OROP, puts aside Rs 1,000 crore PM Modi tells troops in Siachen, “How many decades have passed without OROP. It was in my destiny that is has been fulfilled.” Rao Inderjit Singh, MOS Defence in RS: OROP approved but will be implemented once modalities are approved by the govt. Refuses to comment on reasons for delay Defence minister Parrikar says announcement will be made in 4-8 weeks
WHAT’S THE REAL COST?

Yearly cost estimate for implementing OROP
Rs. 3,000
crore
2011
Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare,
Ministry of Defence
Rs. 1,300
crore
2011
Department of Expenditure,
Ministry of Finance
Rs.9,300
crore
2014
Controller General of Defence Accounts
Ministry of Defence (reproted estimate)
Pension & Retirement perks to armed forces, 2014-14
Rs. 51,000 cr
Overall defence budget, 2014-15 Rs. 2,29,000 cr


At the heart of the problem are bureaucratic disagreements over costs. The finance ministry told a parliamentary committee in 2011 that it would cost Rs 1,300 crore a year while defence ministry pegged annual cost estimates at Rs 3,000 crore. Yet, now that OROP has been approved, the Comptroller of Defence Accounts has reportedly put the bill as high as Rs 9,300 crore per annum (see charts).
Defence minister Manohar Parikkar has held stakeholder meetings to resolve the crisis, most recently on December 10, with no clear solution yet. Veterans’ groups are perplexed at the changing goalposts, blaming the bureaucracy for being obscurantist. Says Lt Gen SK Bahri (retd), chairman, Alliance of Ex-Service men Organisations: “The bureaucracy is fighting a rear-guard action. It is not difficult to find funds but our problem is the lower bureaucracy which can stop anything in the ministry . We are fighting an internal enemy .”

HOW INDIA COMPARES

COUNTRY THE EDGE IN SALARY AS SERVICE PAY/SPECIAL ALLOWANCE FOR MILITARY SERVICE PENSION SCALE WITH EDGE FOR MILITARY SERVICE
US 15-20% 50 to 75% of last pay drawn protected against inflation. For Civil services, the scale is 33.75% of pay as pension
UK 10% Uniform pension as revised irrespective of rank and date of retirement
Australia AUD 2,608 PA allowance 76.5% of pay
Japan 12-29% on graded scale 70% of pay
France 15% 75% of pay
Pakistan 10-15% and allowance 50-75% of pay with service element military pension
India Nil 50% of pay and same is depressed by 6 to 24% in respect of Lt Col & below ranks constituting 90% of the manpower strength of the defence forces

Source: IESM representation to 7th Pay Commission

Veteran groups, fighting the OROP battle for at least two decades, claim they don’t have the ears of the leadership.”Whatever the bureaucracy tells them, they believe,” says Lt Col Inderjit Singh, chairman, All-India Ex-Services Welfare Organisation. Reassuring doubters, Parrikar was recently quoted as saying that “the government is seriously considering implementing the one-rank-one-pension policy” and the “announcement will be made in four to eight weeks”.

His words may reassure veteran groups who have been organizing protest rallies. Their social media networks are full of invective and a growing sense of “betrayal” and “disillusionment”, which is fast gaining a political edge. The fight for OROP, in this narrative, is turning into a new cipher for the ever-present military trope of overbearing bureaucrats being allowed to ride rough-shod over them in a defence ministry that is still not integrated with service headquarters, as in other liberal democracies.
The problem is that different departments used different formulas to calculate costs but as Major Navdeep Singh, advocate in Punjab and Haryana High Court points out, “the directive to break this logjam has to come from the top”. “There seems to be an anti-services sentiment in the lower bureaucracy ,” he adds, “but higher echelons must overrule such disputes.”

Soldiers vs civilians

The case for OROP is predicated on military terms of service being much harsher than those for civil services. Most soldiers retire between 35-37 years of age, while officers below brigadier-or-equivalent do so at 54, with limited re-employment options. Civil servants, in contrast, retire at 60.
Moreover, the Sixth Pay Commission granted the facility of what bureaucrats call “non-functional upgrade” (NFU) to officers in all-India Group A services.This is a sort of `pay-promotion’, allowing them, under certain conditions, to draw higher pay than their rank, without actually being promoted. Almost all civil servants benefit from this while defence services officers do not, even as their career pyramid is much steeper.Only 0.8% of defence officers make it to the rank of major general after 28 years of service, compared with a much higher rate of civil servants who are eligible to become joint secretaries at 19 years of service. As Major Navdeep Singh says, veterans see NFU as a sort of “OROP by backdoor for civil servants”.
Many distinguished veterans argue that they are only asking for what was promised to them, pointing to the aphorism of Chankaya, the architect of the Mauryan empire, who is said to have advised his prodigy Chandragupta Maurya thus: “The day a soldier has to demand his dues will be a sad day for Magadha. From then on you have lost all moral sanctions to be King.”

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COMMENTS

WORDPRESS: 1
  • Anonymous 10 years ago

    Babus will allways oppose OROPand advise wrongly to the Govt. The Govt must keep up their promise. Babus have always been anti defence services. Send these Babus to field areas so that they can experience the severe living condition there.