New Delhi: Buckling under pressure from protesting ex-servicemen, the Narendra Modi government on Saturday finally announced the implementation of One Rank One Pension scheme.
The former announcement was made by Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar following a day of meetings.
The announcement came almost an hour after ex-servicemen, after a meeting with the Defence Minister, said that the concept of OROP was approved by the government.
They had, however, added that some bones of contention remained between them and the government over the issue.
According to the government proposal, the pension will be revised every 5 years with 2013-14 to be the base year and effective from July 1, 2014.
While the number of military veterans is over 24.25 lakh, there are nearly 6 lakh widows, too, who are entitled to lifetime pension. The current pension of defence forces is Rs 54,000 crore and it will increase to Rs 75,000 crore after OROP is implemented.
Almost 85% of military personnel retire before age of 40 but civilian employees serve till the age of 60. Only 1% of military personnel serve upto age of 60. While the number of registered ex-servicemen is 24.25 lakh and there are over 13 lakh serving military personnel. The estimated cost of OROP will be Rs 8,300 crore.
One Rank One Pension scheme has been a long-standing demand of the ex-servicemen. It seeks to ensure that a uniform pension is paid to defence personnel who retire at the same rank with the same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement.
Several retired defence personnel have been protesting at Delhi's Jantar Mantar for One Rank One Pension. Some of them are also on fast-unto-death.
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