IESM: Veteran Pension Stonewalled?

Dear Friends,
Jai Hind.
IESM letter of 28 Dec 10 is reproduced below.
While main reason for our demand for OROP is early retirement, there are many other reasons that other services should not be equated with the Defence Services.
1. Defence Services are the only one denied fundamental rights of a citizen. A serving soldier has no freedom to speech or to form any union.
2. As per the Constitution of India, Defence Services do not appear in the list of Government servants. So why others be compared with us?
3. There is no other service where a person joins knowing high risk to his/ her life.
The rate of casualties in the Defence Services is the highest, even when compared to BSF or other police forces.
4. Other than Defence Services, there is no other service which is not allowed to keep family in place of posting. The BSF and CRPF etc have family accommodation almost everywhere – except where facing the enemy across the border.
5. Defence Services are the only one which have quota for family accommodation even when posted to peace area.
6. Defence services get the least allowances when posted in difficult forward areas.
7. Defence Services are called to do duty of other services when those services fail to carry out their assigned task.
8. “Other services will also ask for OROP”, is a trick of Babus to bluff the political leaders.
9. Babus do not want to support us.
10. Political Leaders may have the desire to grant OROP but, they do not have the moral courage to overrule the Babus.
11. Lastly our three Chiefs – they do not wish to support - why???
In service of Indian Military Veterans
Chander Kamboj.

Dear Colleagues,
Some stray thinking.
While our apprehension on bureaucratic antipathy may be correct, from available information, the political leadership do not seem to be averse to our demand of OROP per se. Their only known and declared reluctance is on the grounds that if OROP were given to defence forces, it would provoke a similar demand from other government employees. In our perception this equation is not justified in view of our totally different service conditions; early retirement being the main one. The regime does realise that, but is still apprehensive of a similar demand emanating from others thus pushing up the pension bill beyond affordability. If this line of thinking is correct, then the government might relent if some kind of an alibi on this score were available to them.
Constitution of the AFGRC might perhaps serve the above purpose. Even though the stipulated charter of this Commission is recommendatory, it cannot be denied that in the manner the AFGRC is coming about, it carries the seal of SC approval. Therefore, should the AFGRC be convinced of OROP for defence forces and recommend it, it should reasonably be construed to have the legal nod of the SC. This would then remove ‘legal difficulty’ as one of the three hurdles repeatedly cited by the government in rejecting OROP. The other non-defence aspirants for OROP, if any, would be expected to follow a similar path, which as of now does not exist.
It may be noted that the government is certainly concerned about the ongoing struggle by the IESM, particularly the medal deposits. As is learnt, after our latest 28 Nov 2010 rally and visit to the Rashtrapati Bhawan, they showed anxiety and have reportedly tasked one of the retired VCOAS to examine the issue and make ameliorating recommendations.
Best regards,
Lt Gen (Emeritus) Raj Kadyan, PVSM, AVSM, VSM
Chairman IESM