21 February 2014

A long battle is won for pension parity

Armed forces personnel have to be young, in keeping with their role that requires high standards of physical fitness. Therefore, unlike other government employees, they are compulsorily retired at an early age. Grant of One Rank-One Pension is considered a partial compensation for the curtailment of their service


Lt Gen Raj Kadyan (Retd)


The Ex-servicemen’s contingent on parade at Rajpath during Republic Day. While announcing grant of One Rank -- One Pension, the government has not fully removed apprehensions in the minds of the veterans

FOR students of military history, the only significance of February 17 is that on this day in 1864, Hunley became the first submarine ever to engage and sink a warship during the American Civil War. But for Indian veterans, February 17, 2014 marks another important milestone. It was on this day the Union Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, during his presentation of the interim budget in the Parliament made an announcement of the government accepting the concept of “One Rank — One Pension” (OROP). If many veterans who were watching the live telecast wanted to reconfirm if what they heard was correct, it was understandable. They had been short-changed and their expectations had been belied so many times that hope was almost lost. Many are still not reconciled to the reality that it has actually happened.

OROP had been projected as a demand for the first time in 1982. It had been simmering since then. It was rekindled and put on the front burner and truly on the national map by the Indian Ex Servicemen Movement staring in 2008. Today almost everyone in the country is familiar with the term, though not many outside the uniform may understand its nuances. Armed forces personnel have to be young in age in keeping with their roles and tasks that require a high standard of physical fitness. Therefore, unlike all other central government employees, they are compulsorily retired at an early age. Nearly 85 per cent defence personnel retire before they reach 40 years of age. It is a big blow to a person to be thrown out of his job at an age when his financial commitments are at the peak. There is no provision for him to be absorbed in another government job till his normal age of superannuation. Nor is there any compensation worth the name. OROP is designed to partially address this issue.

What is OROP? The central pay commissions are constituted every 10 years. Every pay commission recommends enhancement of salaries keeping in view the prevailing cost of living and other relevant factors. Rise in salaries leads to an increase in pensions, which are a percentage of the salaries. The increase in pension is always applied prospectively and past pensioners are left out. This creates a gap in the emoluments of old and new pensioners and this gaps keeps widening with every successive pay commission. Since pension is a remuneration for services rendered, this is an unfair disparity between two defence pensioners that have rendered equal service and have handled the same level of responsibility. To remove this anomaly it is essential that persons retiring after rendering the same length of service and from the same rank always get the same pension. In other words, “equal service, equal rank, equal pension.” This is referred by its shortened version of “One Rank — One Pension.”

Why only the defence pensioners have been persistently demanding OROP? As already explained, this is a partial compensation for the curtailment of their service. For clarity on why it affects the defence pensioners more, an example may be in order. Let us assume there are two young men of the same age and same education. One joins the military and the other the police. Let us assume they are unable to rise above their lowest rank of sepoy and constable, respectively. Statistically, if they both survive till the age of seventy-five years, the difference in their total earnings through salary and pension is nearly Rs 47 lakh in favour of the latter. This of course does not take into account the psychological trauma the soldier suffers for losing his job when he is in his 30s, which can never be compensated.

Veterans’ war strategy

How was the present OROP battle won? When the Sixth Pay Commission report came out at the end of March 2008, it was patently damaging to the interest of the veterans. Some of us ex-servicemen got together and founded the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) to push the case with OROP as their bell-weather demand. Additionally, a separate pay commission for the armed forces and an Ex Servicemen Commission with constitutional powers to ensure the enforcement of central schemes was demanded.

Military service imposes many restrictions on one's freedom of expression. Having served for decades in military uniform, ex-servicemen were quite naturally reluctant to voice their demands in public. They, therefore, made many attempts to press for OROP through memorandums and meetings with decision makers. In April 2008, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh gave a personal audience to ex-servicemen who requested for the grant of OROP. His reply was that if the government gave OROP to defence pensioners, others would also demand it. We contended that if soldiers are kept in a government job till the age of 60 like the others, then even we would not need it. This argument was met with silence. We then cautioned the government that we would be forced to take to the public platform to voice our demand. 
When we did not get a satisfactory response from the authorities, we held our first rally on April 27, 2008. Taking help from the internet, the word was spread quickly and the first rally was held simultaneously in 61 cities across India. After that many public demonstrations were held. This included a relay fast at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, lasting over four months. We gradually increased the pressure on the government. The most potent weapon in our armoury turned out to be the depositing of our medals, to which the government till date has not found any effective counter.

Simultaneously with the public demonstrations, we also kept the channels of communication open. We kept meeting Defence Minister AK Antony, regularly. These meetings proved useful in that we never felt that the doors were finally closed. We also briefed the Members of Parliament who individually were in support of OROP but towed the party line in the House. The media covered our activities widely. The issue became known and we were able to win public sympathy and support. We also kept the public shows totally disciplined and dignified.

A monumental exercise

What happens now? While OROP has been accepted in principle on the floor of the House by the government, and cannot be reversed or modified, it has not fully removed the apprehensions in the minds of the veterans. There have been too many dashed hopes along the long journey of the OROP; some hapless veterans passed away in its wait. Admittedly, there is vast diversity among the defence pensioners. Apart from the three different services of the Army, Navy and Air Force with their own peculiarities, the Army itself has 17 ranks in its hierarchical ladder and numerous different groups, categories, trades, etc. Each case requires individual handling. Considering that there are nearly 30 lakh defence pensioners, the task of working out the final details will indeed be a monumental exercise. However, the veterans have shown perseverance in their struggle and will now show patience. There are many knowledgeable veterans willing to render assistance.

We veterans are responsible people. We are disciplined, patriotic and harbour a strong loyalty to the nation. We understand the constraints of the system and do not ever make unreasonable demands. We only seek our legitimate dues. Kautilya, the legendary political strategist had told Chandragupta that the day the soldiers have to demand their dues, would be the saddest day for the empire. In fact, when the Congress vice president, Rahul Gandhi, came to interact with the veterans on February 14, 2014, had said that he believed the soldiers should be given their dues without their having to ask for these. One does hope all governments in future will follow this dictum.

Getting OROP sanctioned is widely considered as a great victory for the veterans. Notwithstanding the fact that we were compelled to air our demands in public as all other attempts had failed, it ran counter to our intrinsic soldierly values. The government must remain sensitive to the genuine needs of the armed forces.

The writer, a former Deputy Chief of Army Staff, is Chairman, Indian Ex Servicemen Movement

The Long Haul
OROP had been projected as a demand for the first time in 1982. It had been simmering since then
Attempts by ex-servicemen to press for the OROP demand through submission of memoranda and meeting the decision makers did not get a satisfactory response from the authorities
They then took to the public platform to voice their demands and also deposited their medals with the government, while keeping in touch with the Defence Minister and Parliamentarians
Having accepted OROP in Parliament, the decision cannot be reversed or modified

OROP explained

ONE rank one pension implies equal pension for having served in the same rank and having rendered the same length of service. At present, the pension of armed forces personnel who have retired at different times is different even though they are similarly placed as far as rank and length of service goes. This is because after implementation of a new pay commission, the revised pension is fixed at the bottom of the new pay scale corresponding to a particular rank or grade. While those in service get annual increments and hence their pension, which is 50 per cent of the last drawn pay, increases, the pension of prior retirees remains fixed at the bottom of the scale. An officer, for example, who retired prior to 2006, when the Sixth Pay Commission was implemented, was getting lower pension that a colonel who retired after 2006 as he had the benefit of additional increments.

Judiciary on pension
A Supreme Court ruling from 1983 states, "Pension is not a bounty nor a matter of grace depending upon the sweet will of the employer. It is not an ex-gratia payment, but a payment for past services rendered."
The Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal, then headed by Justice Ghanshyam Prashad, had in 2010 ruled that the state cannot lay down different criteria for grant of pension for the same rank on the basis of cut-off date of retirement. Stating that all pensioners irrespective of rank were entitled the same pension, the bench had ruled that grant of unequal pay in the same rank violated Article 14 (Equality before law) of the Constitution.

Parliamentary panel’s stance

Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence had, in its report submitted in December 2001, observed that OROP had been in vogue till 1973, when the Third Pay Commission had taken an ex-parte decision to do away with this concept. While affirming the tough service conditions, high risk to life and disturbed family life in the armed forces, the report stated that if the concept of OROP had been working satisfactorily for 26 years after independence, that what was the harm in continuing with the concept now.

Excerpts from budget speech

There is still a small gap in pensions in the ranks of Sepoy and Naik and a gap in the ranks of Major and above. We also need to take care of those who served in the defence forces only for a limited number of years. Government has therefore decided to walk the last mile and close the gap for all retirees in all ranks and has accepted the principle of One Rank One Pension for the defence forces. This decision will be implemented prospectively from the financial year 2014-15. The requirement for 2014-15 is estimated at Rs 500 crore and the sum will be transfered to the Defence Pension Account in the current financial year itself.

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