Dear Veterans,
I had sent a DO letter addressed to the Secy Public Grievance of the Cabinet Secretariat, along with a brief on ‘One Rank One Pension’ meant for the Cabinet Secretary as attached below.
Kindly read the brief if interested and think over if you also can do something to promote the cause.
With regards,
RN Radhakrishnan (Retd Major General)
A Brief to the Cabinet Secretary (Version 2) on Absolute Parity in Pension ‘OROP’ by Major General (Retd) RN Radhakrisnan
Definition of OROP
1. "One Rank One Pension" (OROP) was the terminology, presumably, coined by Sri KP Singh Deo, while reviewing the pension policy for the Armed Forces personnel, way back in 1985. OROP existed prior to 1970. A soldier (the word is used to mean all ranks in all the wings of the Armed Forces), in those distant days, was granted pension based only on the rank he held when he retired, provided that he was eligible for pension. More length of service put in by him did not earn him more of pension. Sri Singh Deo suggested, again presumably, that OROP should mean ‘same rank same length of service same pension’. Since then OROP meant just that.
The President’s Promise
2. The pension issue of the soldier has been addressed by a number of CPCs and the Standing Parliamentary Committee; yet the concept of OROP has, sadly, never been recognized by any of these Agencies. Thus, it is indeed a matter of great jubilation that the President of India has set the path to settle the issue once for all by, perhaps, the historic announcement during the joint session of the Parliament on 04 June 2009. To quote:
“The Committee, headed by the Cabinet Secretary to look into the issue of One Rank One Pension, has already commenced its work and expects to complete it by the end of June 2009”.
Expectations from the Cabinet Secretary
3. As on today, the 25th of June 2009, there has been no word from the Cabinet Secretary on the modus operandi to consult the ex-servicemen community (ESM). ESM hopes that the Secretary will consult some of them in some objective manner before submitting his final recommendation. I am taking this opportunity to express my understanding of the possible solution and hope that the Cabinet Secretary is inclined to discern some possible rationale in my expression.
4. Fixing the Pay in the Revised Scale. Bound by the mandate that ‘pensioners of the same rank with same total length of service must draw the same pension’, the pension has to be related to the prevalent revised pay. Therefore, the fixing of pay, in the revised scale of pay (RSP), has to be judiciously done. According to the present system of initial pay fixation as on 01-01-2008 (refer SAI 1/S/2008) the revised pay for a sepoy, who has reached the top of the existing pay scale (ESP) in the 16th year of service, is fixed at 8650 in the revised pay scale. However, the SAI has adopted bunching up two levels in the ESP at one level of increment in the RSP for most of the soldiers in the various ranks, who have earned more number of increments and hence higher pay.
5. Anomaly. This shall lead to anomaly in fixing pension in contradiction to the concept of OROP. Let us illustrate the case of a sepoy, belonging to ‘X’ Group.
Comparing with a sepoy of the same group, retiring in the year say 2009 with 16 years of service
Thus, the pension of a senior sepoy is short by Rs2870 ie 29.17% and it is the effect of wrong fitment formula of the SAI. Similar shall, obviously, be the situation in the case of every rank. It may be noted that the effect due to the concept of ACP has not been taken into account and, on taking that into account, the disparity will widen. Hence it becomes apparent that in order to ensure OROP, one has to, first, address the issue of proper initial fixation of pay.
6. Initial Fixation of pay. It becomes necessary, at this juncture, to deliberate and accept the special status of a soldier due to his and his family’s sacrifices and, the hardships he has to undergo while serving and on forced early retirement. Having accepted the special status of the soldier, the initial fixation of pay for a soldier must, more appropriately, be done as described below:
This may sound complicated. But for an accountant, it is a simple matter of drawing two tables one for the commissioned officers and one for the others, in a time frame of a few hours. I have already drawn these tables and can make them available, if needed.
7. Fixing Pension. If one is guided by the recent Supreme Court Judgment of Sep 2008, ignoring the context in which it was pronounced, the pension for ESM may be revised as per the procedure given below.
8. The Correct Method. By the method mentioned above a soldier gets his due pension only over a time. On the contrary, if the notional pay for an ESM is correctly fixed as described in para 6 above, the correct pension is easily and in a fair manner calculated for the ESM. As the notional pay in the revised scale, commensurate to his rank and the total length of service is known, his correct pension is easily and in a fair manner calculated for the ESM. The pension is worked out as a proportion (70% in the case of ranks from sepoy to Havildar and 50% in others’ case) of the total of the pay so determined, the Grade pay, the Military Service Pay and Group pay where applicable.
9. Conclusion By either of these two methods, OROP can be assured. However, the method under para 7 delays the entitlement by quite a few years for the ESM; hence opting for the correct method as described in para 8 is fair and just. While addressing the issue, it is worthwhile to consider the possibility of
