New Delhi: As nation celebrates 16th anniversary of India's victory over Pakistan in Kargil war on Sunday and pays homage to the soldiers, ex-servicemen and families of martyrs of the war are protesting against the delay in implementation of One Rank One Pension Scheme.
Social activist Anna Hazare will also join the protesters around 10:30 AM at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.
One Rank One Pension scheme has been a long-standing demand of nearly 3 million ex-servicemen and war widows in the country. 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.
Reaching out to ex-servicemen, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had during a Lok Sabha election rally in early 2014 said, "If Atal Bihari Vajpayee had come to power in 2004 then the One Rank One Pension problem wouldn't have come up. He would have given retired Army officers and serving officers the means to live with dignity."
But even one year after he assumed power on May 26, 2014, the promise remains unfulfilled.
While visiting jawans in Siachen on October 23, 2014, Modi had said, "The promise of OROP has been fulfilled. We want all our Army officers to live with dignity."
Despite the Prime Minister's assurances, the scheme continues to elude ex-servicemen.
Hazare said, "We will go to state across India to wake people up on issue of OROP. The Modi government promised implementation of OROP before coming to power. What is the reason behind BJP not implementing the scheme now?"
Hazare has already announced launching an indefinite fast on October 2 in Delhi over the Land Bill and to press for OROP.
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