ESM: UP election promises- six months elapsed nothing visible

Panel to redress woes of ex-servicemen soon
23 Sep 2008, 0444 hrs IST, Rajesh N Singh, TNN

LUCKNOW: Gearing up for the next Lok Sabha elections, the Bahujan Samaj Party government is eying the large vote bank in retired defence personnel. The government plans to extend all possible help in getting their grievances redressed at the district-level itself.

It was largely felt that the retired defence personnel face a lot of hardship in getting their ‘just work’ done. Be it an issue related to land dispute or education for their ward, they had to run from pillar to post to get the job done. “In most of the cases it was found that the concerned person, after approaching the officials of the district administration, used to get a standard reply: file shasan gayi hai,” said a senior official in the social welfare department. In view of this fact, the state government has in principle decided to constitute ‘zila sainik bandhu’ in every district of the state by amending the government order issued in July 1999 for extending help to retired defence personnel.

As per the decision taken, the ‘zila sainik bandhu’ will be headed by the district magistrate with a retired senior defence personnel or a person nominated by the district magistrate as vice-president. The other members of the committee would be the district police chief, chief development officer, additional district magistrate (finance and revenue), chief medical officer, district inspector of schools, district social welfare officer, general manager, zila udyog kendra, treasury officer, district khadi and gramudyog officer, NCC, commanding officer and district employment officer.

“Besides, two ex-servicemen from every tehsil will be nominated by the DM concerned with district soldier welfare and rehabilitation officer as the member-secretary,” said the official. He said the meeting of the ‘zila sainik bandhu’ would be held every month on the third Saturday to redress the problems related to land dispute, police security, loan from banks, pension, education, medical, financial grant and other complaints by the defence personnel.

On being contacted, principal secretary, social welfare, Devendra Choudhary confirmed that a GO in that regard would soon be issued. He said once the amended GO was in place, the district magistrate concerned would be held accountable for the suffering of a retired defence personnel or their family members.

He said the problem being faced by ex-servicemen had to be accorded top priority and its timely disposal would have to be ensured by the committee that would have to maintain a record of applications received for redressal of grievances.
Panel to redress woes of ex-servicemen soon

Comment: Over six months have elapsed since the election promise of putting in place "zila sainik bandhu" a new avatar for Ex Servicemen in Uttar Pradesh. Will the bureaucrats set in motion the promises made by Politicians or is it an empty promise to die its natural death like all other promises made by Politicians?