OROP: ECHS savings to offset OROP implementation costs?

Date: Sunday, 7 June, 2009, 9:44 PM
Dear Gen Kadyan,
Your mail of 06 Jun is really thought provoking, yes the credit for the appointment of Committee with Cabinet Secretary as Chairman goes to our movement under your Captaincy- IESM.

Can we for a minute look at solving the problem adopting another approach, now we have a golden opportunity? Rather than branding all the members of the Cabinet Secretary Committee as "anti- Service", help them, convince them, carry them with us with supporting facts and figures to help us.

I am convinced that if this Committee recommends OROP it will get the support from RM, FM and PM and will get implemented.

But what is our argument in support of OROP, yes it was well debated and discussed by all Veterans/ Legal experts amongst us and it was presented to all concerned, good enough.

The important aspect is, have we ever looked at it any time from the point of view of the Finanial Pandits? (there is no point in arguing that Govt had written off huge sum of Agricultural loan). The ground reality is that the Govt have to find additional funds to the tune of Rs 2700 crores to pay the arrears of OROP and another Rs 600 crores annual recurring revenue expenditure for introduction of OROP.

Rather than the technicalities of the issue, the main issue before this Committee is the generation/ availability of huge funds required for implementation of OROP. Can we help them in this regard, so that they can help us. The question is how do we find the money?

YES, there is a simple way- TWO BIRDS AT ONE SHOT. Ensure that the proposal (Liberalized ECHS ) submitted 3 years back by a Techno Management Consultant R Admiral G Kuruvilla (Retd) is implemented. Understand that the proposal is still haunting the ECHS authorities, never mind, if the Liberalized ECHS is implemented, the savings made in Capital expenditure itself is more than that is required for the payment of arrears of OROP and the additional funds required yearly for payment due to OROP is less than the savings Liberalized ECHS can make in revenue expenditure every year. Let us use the words which can be more appealing to the Financial Wizards, yes we are proposing a MATCHING SAVING for the implementation of OROP .

I have a request to make to ALL the ESM organizations and elder ESM brothers in the Country, please spare 10 minutes to understand that the Liberalized ECHS proposal gives lot of additional privileges to the Urbanites. (by making the system more user friendly and access friendly) Only Negative point is that those in Rural areas will also be able to enjoy the same privilege which was earlier monopolized by Urbanites. Is it not a shame that all ESM Organizations (including the few where I am heading) which are City based never did anything worthwhile for the prime requirement of about 85% of our unlucky brothers settled in Rural areas (out of which 95 % of them are PBOR category). PBOR Organizations are of the opinion that most of the ESM Organizations are officer dominated and that is the main reason for the inaction by most of these Organizations in looking after the TOP most requirement of Rural Veterans.

Think what is the best line of action as an Organization in this regard. I am sure A CONGRESSMAN like Maj Rao can play a key role in this regard. I am always available for providing any clarification to any one in this regard. I wish I had been stationed in Delhi!. We must try hard in this direction and I am sure WE can and WE could achieve what we want.
LET US NOT MISS THIS LAST CHANCE IN OUR LIFE TIME.
Warm regards,
Rear Admiral G Kuruvilla VSM (Retd)

Additional expenditure for OROP
The additional expenditure of Rs 2400 crores and yearly recurring Rs 600 crores is really over estimated and wrongly interpolated. Realistically it would be under Rs 1000 crores with annual recurring expenditure of Rs 300 crores taking into account corrections for parity in pension already implemented. The Government has the finances but the bureaucrats who are obverse to ensuring Pension Parity are bent on keeping 20 lakh PBORs forever subjugated. ECHS popularity is hardly 40 percent. We can surely reduce expenditure to the tune of 60 percent which will offset the additional expenditure incurred if OROP is implemented.