Pension promise in peril?

By Nalin Mehta, TNN, 14 December 2014

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.

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 ."

 
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."

Courtesy: Times of India

A unique, humble and politically neutral appeal to the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister by public figures regarding our veterans, disabled soldiers and military widows

ON THE OCCASION OF THE ARMED FORCES FLAG DAY 

7^th DEC 2014

When you go home, tell them of us and say

For their tomorrow, we gave our today

A REQUEST BY CONCERNED CITIZENS TO THE HON’BLE PRIME MINISTER AND THE DEFENCE MINISTER (RAKSHA MANTRI) CALLING FOR INCULCATION OF SENSITIVITY WITHIN THE SYSTEM TOWARDS THE NEEDS AND REQUIREMENTS OF MILITARY VETERANS AND FURTHER FOR WITHDRAWING LITIGATION INITIATED BY THE GOVERNMENT IN THE LAST FEW YEARS AGAINST DISABLED SOLDIERS AND MILITARY WIDOWS

Sirs,

1.    At the outset, we would like to emphasize that this request of ours is politically neutral and without any political connotations and we are making this effort on the Armed Forces Flag Day  with an optimism stemming out of your known concern for men and women in uniform. 

2.     In the last few years, the country has witnessed humongous amount of litigation initiated by the Government against its own disabled soldiers, old military pensioners and military widows. In fact, it is well known that most of the Civil Appeals/SLPs filed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and pending in the Hon’ble Supreme Court are against the disability benefits awarded by Courts and Tribunals to disabled soldiers- an actuality which is stark and alarming enough to make the entire citizenry hang its head in shame. 

3.     Most of these appeals are filed in the Hon’ble Supreme Court by the MoD on the pretext that court decisions favouring disabled soldiers are against “Government policy” and some officers seem to suggest that irrespective of the arbitrariness or the illogical nature of some policies, it is their sacred duty to defend them till the Apex Court rather than undertake an honest exercise to resolve anomalies in such policies or making them humane or realizing that there must be something amiss in such policies if the same are being repeatedly commented upon adversely by judicial bodies. Moreover, many decisions rendered by Courts and Tribunals in favour of soldiers are not implemented by the MoD without even obtaining a ‘stay’ from a higher judicial forum. 

4.      It is also observed with concern that appeals on similar legal issues are repeatedly filed by the MoD citing artificial distinctions even when a particular matter has already been settled by the Hon’ble Supreme Court or a High Court. It is further a matter of concern that some of such appeals involve a pittance, to take an example, there are appeals filed by the MoD against the enhancement of disability element of pension granted to Sepoys by High Courts/Armed Forces Tribunals @50% disability rates in lieu of 40% rates- a total basic pension amount of Rs 310/- (Rupees Three Hundred and Ten) per month. There are other appeals challenging the award of 20% disability element amounting to Rs 702/- (Rupees Seven Hundred and Two). Comparing it with the litigation threshold of other Ministries again paints a grim picture since establishments such as the Income Tax Department do not approach the Hon’ble Supreme Court unless the amount involved is more than Rs 25,00,000/- (Rupees Twenty Five Lac). 

5.      It is also unethical that in the course of such moves by the MoD, the lower level staff has drilled into the minds of the higher bureaucracy and the political executive that soldiers are being ‘greedy’ with their demands. These are one-sided decisions obtained from the political executive by painting a unilateral picture since poor soldiers and military veterans and other stakeholders do not have the ear of the higher echelons of governance and are unable to rebut incorrect facts ultimately leading to skewed decisions. As per media reports, the Government has recently (probably rightly) decided not to appeal to the Hon’ble Supreme Court against a decision of the Hon’ble Bombay High Court involving an amount of Rs 35,000 Crores, in order to support the morale of business houses investing in India and also the overall business sentiment, but we would like to point out here that the morale of our men and women in uniform is also of utmost importance to us as a nation, and we, the citizens, and the Government, are expected to stand behind them rather than stand against them in an adversarial role. It is painful to even imagine the agony caused to poor soldiers and their families who, from far off places, are forced to litigate by the MoD till the Hon’ble Supreme Court with meagre resources. 

6.    Disability benefits are granted quite liberally in all democracies but in India these are made subject to many Ifs and Buts leading to a hyper-technical and literal approach rather than a liberal approach as is intended by the rules. For example, many disabilities such as psychiatric and cardiovascular disorders are termed as “Neither Attributable to, Nor Aggravated to military service” resulting in denial of disability benefits not realizing that irrespective of whether a person in deployed in field or peace, there is inherent stress and strain in military service coupled with the fact that a person operates away from family during most of his/her service in a regimented lifestyle under a strict disciplinary code. Within the system, there is denial of benefits at many stages starting from military medical boards to administrative authorities, who, at times even easily blame ‘domestic reasons’ for stress related disorders again not realizing that a person remaining away from family due to the very nature of military service is torn between domestic requirements that he cannot attend to (as other common citizens can) on one hand and the call of duty on the other. Such issues have already been favourably emphasized by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the two recent decisions of Dharamvir Singh Vs UOI (Civil Appeal 4949/2013) decided on 02 July 2013 and K Srinivasa Reddy Vs UOI (Civil Appeal No 5140/2011) decided on 09 Oct 2014 and by the Hon’ble Punjab & Haryana High Court in Umed Singh Vs UOI (CWP 7277/2013) decided on 14 May 2014 and Barkat Masih Vs UOI (CWP 1792/2013) decided on 23 May 2014. In fact, in most operationally active armies, any disability arising in a person while in military service or during authorized leave is deemed and presumed to be related to service unless caused due to gross negligence or substance abuse. 

7.        It would also be appropriate to recall that appreciably many MPs cutting across party lines have taken up this issue in the past, including Ms Smriti Z Irani, who did so in August 2013, in the following terms:

“...though the rules of granting disability pension are inherently very liberal and also endorsed as such by the Supreme Court in the recent judgment of Dharamvir Singh Vs. Union of India, yet many cases of disabilities arising during military service are restrictively and hyper-technically declared ‘neither attributable to, nor aggravated by military service’ by the MoD leading to denial of disability pension to disabled soldiers. Also, military personnel with non-service related disabilities discharged with less than 10 years of service are not entitled to any form of pension leading to denial of the right to live a life of dignity, whereas the employment of civilian employees on being disabled is protected under section 47 of Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 enabling them to earn full pension. Majority of appeals and SLPs filed by MoD before the Supreme Court are against their own disabled soldiers on the specious ground that courts and tribunals have granted relief against Defence Ministry’s policy. More than one lakh retired defence personnel have been affected.

            Ironically, far from safeguarding the welfare of retired soldiers, sailors and airmen, many of them disabled from battle injuries or the bleak conditions of service, the DESW stonewalls and holds off payment until an ex-serviceman claimant is either dead or broke.

            In view of the above, I urge the Government to intervene in the matter to resolve the issue and ensure that soldiers who made sacrifices for the nation get their rightful and respectful due...”

8.      For the defence community, the ruling majority party had also kindly included “minimizing of appeals” as one of the points in the defence section of its manifesto and even You Sir (the Hon’ble Prime Minister) had objected to litigation involving disabled soldiers in your first campaign in Rewari in Haryana. It is hence legitimate to expect that both of you, that is, the Hon’ble PM and the Raksha Mantri, would be forceful enough to make the MoD realize the morbidity and the anti-veteran character of their attitude in making disabled, war disabled, maimed, handicapped and infirm soldiers the target of such sadistic ego-fuelled litigation which emerges not out of genuine legal points but out of administrative egotism when mere common soldiers, especially of the lower ranks, manage to get relief in Courts against the mighty system, the MoD. 

9.         With this sanguine hope, all of us hence appeal to you Hon’ble PM and Raksha Mantri ji, to initiate the following steps:

A.   Direct Ministry of Defence to withdraw litigation initiated against our disabled soldiers & military widows related to the subject of their disability and pensionary benefits at the earliest.

B.     Constitute a committee, with stakeholders and independent experts as members, to resolve all other policy anomalies which have given rise to litigation in issues concerning military veterans and widows.

C.     Ensure that officers serving in the Ministry of Defence in general, and Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare in particular, are sensitized towards the needs and requirements of the military community and realize that it is their first pious obligation to serve soldiers, veterans and their families, giving them due respect and dignity which they deserve. 

Thanking you in anticipation

CITIZENS FOR SOLDIERS

Endorsed by

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Member of Parliament

211, North Avenue

New Delhi – 110011

(The above address may be used for communication related to the subject)

And

2. Kabir Bedi, International Actor, Cavaliere Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana

3. Brig Kuldip Singh Chandpuri (Retd), MVC, VSM, War Hero, Battle of Laungewala 1971 Indo-Pak War

4. Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd), PVSM, AVSM, VrC, VSM, Former Chief of the Naval Staff

5. Justice Ghanshyam Prasad, Former Judge, Patna High Court, Former Member, Armed Forces Tribunal

6. Lt Gen S Pattabhiraman (Retd), PVSM, AVSM, SM, VSM, Former Vice Chief of the Army Staff, Former Member, Armed Forces Tribunal

7. Vijay Gore, IAS (Retd), Former Additional Chief Secretary Govt of Karnataka

8. Lt Gen PC Katoch (Retd) PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, SC, Former DGIS, Indian Army

9. Chinmayi Sripaada, Award Winning Singer, CEO Blue Elephant, Former RJ & TV Host

10. Lt Gen Milan Naidu (Retd), PVSM, AVSM, YSM, Former Vice Chief of the Army Staff, Former Member, Armed Forces Tribunal

11. Sucheta Dalal, Managing Editor Moneylife, Founder Trustee Moneylife Foundation, Padma Shree Awardee

12. Nitin Gokhale, Journalist, Author, Defence Analyst

13. Maj DP Singh (Retd), 100% Disabled Kargil War survivor, First amputee marathon runner from India, Triple Limca Record holder, Inspirational Speaker

14. JP Singh, IAS (Retd), Former Member Public Service Commission

15. Rahul Ravindran, Actor

16. Jaskirat Singh Nagra, Vice President Continental Device India Limited

17. Navdeep Singh, Lawyer, Author

Courtesy: Major Navdeep Singh

A great first step: Standing Committee on Welfare of Ex-Servicemen constituted on the lines of Standing Committee on Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA)

As regular readers would be aware, we have been pointing out that the single biggest impediment in resolution and rationalisation of problems related to military veterans was that the stakeholders did not have a say in decision-making and that senior bureaucrats and the highest of political executive were isolated and insulated from the voice of the veteran community by a regressive coterie of junior level bureaucracy that had grown a tangle of roots within the Ministry of Defence as also the Army HQ. Most problems emanated from this situation since veterans did not have the ear of the decision-makers and decisions were taken behind curtains unilaterally and based on incorrect and sometimes fabricated inputs. This was in sharp contrast to the civil side wherein the Department of Pension and Pensioners’’ Welfare (DoPPW) played a proactive and sensitive role for the welfare of their pensioners in conjunction with the system of the Standing Committee on Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA).

In the last SCOVA meeting under the DoPPW, attended by their Minister of State, Dr Jitendra Singh, this problem was emphatically pointed out, especially by Col Hari Handa, the President of Disabled War Veterans, India (DIWAVE) as was also placed on Major Navdeep's blog on 14 September 2014. 

Those efforts and Dr Jitendra Singh’s strong directions to the Ministry of Defence have borne fruit and a Standing Committee on Welfare of Ex-Servicemen has been constituted which would hold meetings every quarter. The Committee would be chaired by the Rajya Raksha Mantri (RRM) and would also have on it non-official members comprising veteran organisations and official members such as Secretary, Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare, CGDA, DGR, MD ECHS and Secretary KSB. There shall be scope for special invitees too, including representatives of Veterans’ Cells of the three services.

A great and welcome new step by the new Government. Hopefully the momentum shall continue.  

Courtesy: Major Navdeep 

IAF Placement Fair to be held on 14th & 15th Nov 2014.

IAF Placement Cell is organising 7^th IAF Placement Fair on 14^th  and 15^th November 2014 at Air Force Auditorium, Subroto Park, New Delhi -110 010. 

Honourable Raksha Mantri Shri Arun Jaitely will inaugurate the function. Approx 40+ companies are expected to participate in the fair . 

Shortly retiring Airwarriors / retired Airveterans willing to participate in the placement fair must register through IAFPC website (www.iafpc.co.in).