Friday 2 January 2015

ALL INDIA EX SERVICES WELFARE ASSOCIATION

aiewa_association@rediffmail.com
Web site :
www.aiewa.org
Blog : aiewa.blogspot.in
(We Were THIRTY YEARS YOUNG On 21 Nov 2011)
M 35 Palika Bhawan,
RK Puram, Sector 13,
New Delhi 110066.
Ph :011 26110710
Fax :011 241O6144


RESOLUTION DATED 21 AUG 2014 - ONE RANK ONE PENSION


Dear Friends

The Hon'ble PM had promised OROP during the Election on several occasions. After the Elections during the Joint Session of the Parliament the President of India gave a firm commitment to grant to the Armed Forces their long standing demand of OROP besides several more commitments at various times.

While the PM was making these statements the RM was expressing different views. At one occasions he advised the Veterans to tone down their expectations which in other words means they should not hope for full OROP.

Disturbed by this state of affairs the Veterans of this Association, in their Governing Council Meeting on 21 Aug 2014, passed a Resolution which they wanted to be passed onto the PM. The Resolution basically stated -

"The Resolution requested the PM to fulfil his promise to the Veterans by
31 Dec 2014 failing which we will think he is not satisfied with sacrifices
made by us during service and he wants some more. To meet his
requirement we shall then make some more to satisfy him to win him over."

In the meantime we have received a letter from the MOD stating that modalities have been discussed and will be implemented when finalised. We had replied that letter with a promise to come back with what is decided in our Meeting of the Executive on 31 Dec.

The Meeting of the Executive was held as per schedule here in Delhi. The Executive Committee took note of various statements by the RM lately. Taking note of his promise to finalise it by Budget Session we finally decided to extend our Deadline to 31 Mar 2015. Letters conveying our Decision have been sent to the PM and RM.

The letters to both the leaders are given below for your info.

Regards

Lt Col Inderjit Singh
Chairman
09811007629

========================================================================
LETTER TO THE HON'BLE PM

1. Please refer to your letter No 10(09)/2014/D(Pen/Pol) of 16 Dec 14.

2. Seeing what was happening about OROP in Aug 2014 our Association had passed a Resolution on 21 Aug 2014 which they wanted to be sent to our respected PM.

"The Resolution requested the PM to fulfil his promise to the Veterans by
31 Dec 2014 failing which we will think he is not satisfied with sacrifices
made by us during service and he wants some more. To meet his
requirement we shall then make some more to satisfy him to win him over."

3. In view of the serious efforts by the RM to resolve the issue and his pronouncements that he would try to give it by Budget Session we have decided to wait until 31 Mar 2015.

4. We would however like to request you to direct him not to allow the Bureaucrats to mislead him on the Definition of OROP. There is only one Definition of OROP and that is approved by the Parliament and is reflected in Services DGL submitted to him. You had promised OROP and we will expect that he your trusted lieutenant would not let you down.

5. If the Bureaucrats can legitimise for themselves daylight Robbery on the Govt treasury in the name of Non Functional Financial Upgrade (NFFU) the granting of legitimate long standing demand of Veterans should not be a problem for them.

6. We await the acceptance of Services DGL to be announced very soon.

The Hon’ble
Sh. Narendra Modi Bhai
The Prime Minister of India
South Block
New Delhi-110011


Note : Copy of this letter has been sent to RM, RRM, and the three Chiefs

========================================================================LETTER TO HON'BLE RM

1. Please refer to your letter No 10(09)/2014/D(Pen/Pol) of 16 Dec 14.

2. Seeing what was happening about OROP in Aug 2014 our Association had passed a Resolution on 21 Aug 2014 which they wanted to be sent to our respected PM.

"The Resolution requested the PM to fulfil his promise to the Veterans by
31 Dec 2014 failing which we will think he is not satisfied with sacrifices
made by us during service and he wants some more. To meet his
requirement we shall then make some more to satisfy him to win him over."

3. Since you were to work it out we sent a copy to you also.

4. In view of the serious efforts by you to resolve the issue and your pronouncements that you would try to give it by Budget Session we have decided to wait until 31 Mar 2015.

5. We would however like to request you not to allow the Bureaucrats to mislead you on the Definition of OROP. There is only one Definition of OROP and that is approved by the Parliament and is reflected in Services DGL submitted to you. The PM had promised OROP and we will expect that you the trusted lieutenant of his would not let him down.

6. If the Bureaucrats can legitimise for them selves daylight Robbery on the Govt treasury in the name of Non Functional Financial Upgrade (NFFU) the granting of legitimate long standing demand of Veterans should not be a problem for them.

7. We await the acceptance of Services DGL to be announced very soon.

The Hon'ble
Sh Manohar Parrikar
The Defence Minister
Govt of India
New Delhi

Note:Copy of this letter has been sent to RRM and three Chiefs

Armed Forces: They defend us but there’s no one to defend their rights




Karan Thapar

December 27, 2014

Fifteen months after Mr Modi demanded One Rank One Pension, 10 months after the UPA granted it, five months after Arun Jaitley reconfirmed it and two months after the PM boasted in Siachen that “One Rank One Pension has been fulfilled,” 

Why is this promise still not implemented? And why are ex-servicemen still in doubt about when and even whether it will happen? 

The truth is this is a promise Mr Modi’s government intends to break. It’s already late in fulfilling it but now it’s indicated it will also renege.

At a recent Aaj Tak conclave, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said ex-servicemen would get 80% of OROP and then added “100% satisfaction to everyone is never given in real life”. Why then did Messrs Modi and Jaitley promise the full whack and on what basis did the former claim it had been fulfilled?

Were they misleading the armed forces with pre-election promises that were beguiling and likely to win support, but which they had not thought through? Today, doesn't it seem like that? And if approximately two million ex-servicemen and 400,000 widows feel cheated aren't they justified?

I’m told it’s the cost of OROP that’s made the government reconsider. The Comptroller of Defence Accounts has estimated it could be Rs. 9,300 crore. But three years ago the Cabinet Secretary estimated the cost at Rs. 8,000-9,000 crore. So if it’s gone up to Rs. 9,300 crore, surely inflation accounts for the increase?

More importantly, did Mr Chidambaram in February, when he made the commitment, and Mr Jaitley in July, when he reconfirmed it, not take this into account? If they didn't it would amount to more than negligence; it would be rank irresponsibility.

Now consider what Mr Parrikar’s reduction of OROP to 80% would save. A paltry Rs. 1,860 crore. As Defence Minister is he seriously saying this is too much to give the armed forces, who are prepared to lay down their lives for our security?

There are good reasons why the armed forces deserve OROP. First, the majority of officers retire at 54 whilst 85% of jawans before they are 40. Civil servants continue till they are 60. Politicians, frequently, into their 80s.

In fact, the disparity is worse. An IAS officer becomes a joint secretary after only 19 years of service. The equivalent grade in the army is major general, but it takes an officer 30 years to attain that rank. Also, all IAS officers retire at least with joint secretary pensions. Only 0.8% of army officers become major generals.

However, it’s not the government alone that I blame for this unprincipled behaviour. The Congress’s lack of concern about a commitment it first made is no less deplorable. They’ve gone out of their way to place obstacles in the path of coal and insurance — where cooperation would have been preferable — but they're unconcerned about OROP, which is crying out for attention.

In fact, OROP is a genuine instance of a BJP U-turn but it doesn’t feature in the list Congress released a few weeks ago. That proves it wasn’t following the issue. And that’s because it doesn't matter to the Congress.

The truth is Indian politicians have let down the armed forces. As far back as 2003, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence recommended OROP, calling it “a debt”. 

Both parties promised to deliver. But now the government is scaling down its promise whilst the opposition is either unconcerned or silent.

If this is not betrayal, what else would you call it?

The views expressed by the author are personal 
Modi-Ji, This Broken Promise is An Act of Dishonour
Dr Shashi Tharoor
(NDTV Story First Published: January 01, 2015 00:15 IST)
(Dr. Shashi Tharoor is a two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the former UN Under-Secretary-General. He has written 14 books, including, most recently, Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century.)

New Year's Resolutions, it is said, are made to be broken. There's something about a new dawn that inspires the earnestness of yearned-for virtue in most of us, and we solemnly pledge to do this and that in the course of the New Year which we never thought ourselves capable of fulfilling in the old. And then, as the New Year turns less new, we tend to regret those rash resolutions, modify them, ignore them, or most of all, simply forget them.

Our new government didn't wait for the New Year to make something of a habit of breaking its promises, as a celebrated Congress Party publication on the BJP's many U-turns pointed out in early December. To some degree, this is unsurprising in most democracies: after all, as New York Governor Mario Cuomo famously pointed out more than two decades ago, "you campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose". 

Extravagant campaign promises tend to look much more difficult to fulfil when faced with the reality of government.

But still, it is something new to discover a government breaking a promise that it has repeatedly made not just in its campaign but on the floor of Parliament, expressed by the Finance Minister in his Budget speech and repeated by the Prime Minister himself. A failure to fulfill such promises is normally, in most parliamentary democracies, a resigning matter, but our government carries on, blithely unconcerned. Meanwhile, of this particular promise, there is no sign of any intention to actually fulfill it.

What am I going on about? Very simple: it is the pledge to ensure "One Rank One Pension" for our retired military personnel, who currently suffer gross injustice through the provision of pensions that have not been indexed to inflation, so that a Brigadier who retired twenty years ago gets a lower pension than a Captain who leaves the force this year. OR YOUNG IAS/IPS OFFICER

This entirely reasonable demand - made by people who have risked their lives to protect our borders, our nation, and us - was acceded to by the UPA government, echoed by the NDA, and announced again by the new regime after its ascension to power. Barely two months ago, Prime Minister Modi declared emotionally on his visit to the troops in Siachen that "One Rank One Pension has been fulfilled".

But Modi-ji, it has not been fulfilled. Not one soldier has received an enhanced pension; meanwhile leaks in the newspapers "reveal" that the Finance Ministry has had a change of heart, saying that justice to our men in uniform would "cost too much"

It seems the Comptroller of Defence Accounts has estimated that the cost of One Rank One Pension could be as high as 9,300 crore. It may sound a lot, but the estimated budget for Mr Modi's much-vaunted statue of Sardar Patel is 1,500 crore, which puts this sum in perspective.

At a recent media conclave, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar hedged his bets, suggesting that ex-servicemen would get 80% of the promised pension, and adding that "100% satisfaction to everyone is never given in real life." This is an utter travesty. Is Mr Modi prepared to stand before the nation and say that we should not believe anything he promises, but that he will try to deliver 80% of it?

If the Kargil war had happened on his watch, would we have to be content with getting 80% of the heights back?

Our soldiers never make 80% effort; they give 100%, indeed more. The nation owes them at least this much.

It is true I have a soft corner for our armed forces. I believe they embody the best of what India can be, but so rarely is: they are motivated, professional, meritocratic, competent, reliable, free of caste and religious prejudice, and they take risks the rest of us would not dare to.

Yet we treat them in a disgracefully cavalier fashion. 

During my UN peace-keeping years, when I dealt with a large number of senior military officers and issues from around the world, I was appalled to see how poorly our professional officers were valued by our self-regarding bureaucracy.

Whereas our officers, man to man, outshone their counterparts from Western militaries in their competence, intelligence and humanity, our system subjected them to various petty indignities.

A full Colonel with over 25 years of service behind him is ranked by our babus below a Director in protocol terms.

I have suffered through peacekeeping seminars in which a knowledgeable Indian military officer had to defer to a callow bureaucrat in discussions on military matters. 

At a time when post-Cold War peacekeeping called for serious levels of military expertise at the UN Headquarters in New York, India remained the only Permanent Mission to the UN (of any major peace-keeping contributor) not to post a military adviser.

Our diplomats believed they knew it all themselves.

This attitude extends to conditions of service across the board. A Joint Secretary, with nineteen years of professional experience, is deemed the equivalent of a Major-General, who not only has thirty years but has commanded men and materiel, made life-and-death decisions and protected our nation. We pay pensions to a lot more Joint Secretaries than Major-Generals (only 0.8% of army officers ever attain Major General rank). Yet we are now quibbling about the cost.[ 100 % IAS/IPS OFFICER WITH 19 YEARS TIME SCALE GET Lt GENERAL PENSION]

Who are the people we are cheating here by pinching pennies? Some 20 lakh ex-servicemen and four lakh widows. It is time to ask the Government of Messrs Modi and Jaitley: gentlemen, have you no shame?

It is ironic that the BJP, which prides itself on a robust attitude to defence, should betray its own promises to the men who actually defend our country. Building a War Memorial is symbolism, which the Modi government seems much better at than substance. Actually making a difference in the lives of our retired service personnel is the kind of tangible benefit this government shrinks from too often.

As far back as 2003, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence recommended One Rank One Pension, calling it "a debt" the nation had to pay. It is a debt our Government must honour. Not to do so is an act of dishonor. It dishonours the nation and the flag these men have fought to defend. And it thoroughly discredits those who would treat the well-being of our jawans and officers as one more election promise to be lightly cast aside.