Wednesday, November 25, 2015

MEETING WITH HON’BLE FINANCE MINISTER ON 24 NOV 2015

Meeting of UFESM with Shri Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister, GOI, at 1600 hrs on 24 Nov 2015 at North Block, New Delhi

1. A delegation of United Front of Ex Servicemen Movement (UFESM) comprising the following met Shri Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister at his North Block Chamber, New Delhi and presented a Memorandum on various issues of concern to Ex Servicemen on OROP Notification issued by GOI:
a. Lt Col Dinesh Nain – Secretary General
b. Sgt VN Mishra – Vice President
c. Cmde Sudheer Parakala – Chief Coord South Zone
d. Brig SKS Rana – Rep North Zone
e. Cpl Vijay Kumar – Member
f. PO Dhani Chand – Member
g. Hav Ishwar Singh – Member
h. Lt Gen Raj Kadyan – Advisor
2. The delegation was well received by Shri Arun Jaitley, Hon’ble Finance Minister without any Bureaucrats. The Members were introduced to him. It is the first time that Brig Rana and Cmde Sudheer Parakala represented Tri Service Ex-Servicemen Welfare Association (TSEWA) during the meeting at FM level under the umbrella of UFESM on the subject of OROP Notification.
3. Lt Gen Raj Kadyan, Advisor, UFESM, informed the FM that more than 138 ESM organisations have come together and formed UFESM. On a query from FM, it was clarified that UFESM has got nothing to do with the activities of IESM at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi.

4. It was decided to present the three main concerns of UFESM so that the effort is not diluted on minor issues like the Effective Date and Base Year. The details of the three points that were included in the Memorandum are given in the succeeding paragraphs.

5. Periodicity of Equalisation of Pension. It was highlighted that OROP definition as given in Koshiyari Committee report and accepted on the floor of the House is “OROP implies that uniform pension be paid to the Armed Forces Personnel retiring in the same Rank with the same length of service irrespective of their date of retirement and any future enhancement in the rates of pension to be automatically passed on to the past pensioners”. Since after the VI Pay Commission, the salaries and consequently the pensions have been increasing by 3% every year, the pension must also be revised every year and not every five years as given in the notification.

6. Fixing of the Bench Mark. It was pointed out that the Notification talked of fixing the Benchmark up to which the past pensioners of the same Rank and same service are to be brought, based on the mean of minimum and maximum of the pension scale in a particular year. Since the pensions already being received are to be protected, it would imply that those already above the mean would continue to get the existing pensions which would lead to one rank and many pensions thereby violating the very definition and spirit of OROP.

7. Pre-Mature Retirement. It was pointed out that there are various categories of Defence Personnel who seek retirement and presumably may require different yardstick to be applied to these categories of personnel. The FM was requested to issue suitable amendments to the Notification elucidating the policy on this.

8. The FM gave a patient hearing on the above points and suggested that the points may be referred to the Judicial Commission. However the representatives stated that since the report of commission will only be recommendatory in nature and since the Ministry is competent to take a decision, it would be appreciated if these points were not left to the commission. The FM assured that the suggestions would be looked into on the file.

9. Single Ladies.The Members also highlighted the plight of single ladies who get very meagre pension and that they were unable to make both ends meet. The FM appreciated various aspects brought out by the delegation and assured to examine all the issues. He added that the burden on the Finances on OROP and VII Pay Commission exceeds 3% of GDP as against intended 2.5% and this will have an adverse effect on the development. The Advisor informed that a separate meeting would be sought to discuss the anomalies in the VII Pay Commission to which the FM agreed and said that his Ministry is examining the recommendations.

10. The meeting ended on a positive note because this is the first time that an ESM delegation has been met at the level of the Finance Minister.

11. The waiting electronic media was also briefed about the meeting and its outcome.

(Sudheer Parakala)
Commodore, IN (Retd)
Core Committee Member, TSEWA
24 Nov 2015.

(Source- Via e-mail) 

7 comments:

  1. Please take a question of circular 547 for pbor which is not a good decision for pbor as the officers received arrears 3 to 4 lakhs before diwali pbor are waiting 2 to 3 thousand. What a Drama with pbor. Pro rata, manimum, maximum is only for pbor not for officers, pbor are effected arrears from 01.01.2006 to 30.06.2009 as per Annexures A, B,C and officers are effected from 01.01.2006 to 23.09.2012 without Annexures without minimum.

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    1. Who will be the joker listening to us?Let Almighy take care of us.Ther is no unity among the veterans.There should be one union and one leader .In this vast subcontinent,lakhs of veterans can not assemble come together at a time.There can be union branches in every district head quarters.We should function under one umbrella.

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  2. I was surprised seeing the post about meeting the FM, more so shocked to see the name of Gen Kadyan in the group. We are doing the same mistake our "spineless" Military leadership did in 1973, when our perks and privileges were reduced and status degraded. The future generation including our children in the forces will curse us for this short sighted and selfish attitude towards OROP. Let our conscious speak to us.

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  3. The contention that salaries are increasing by 3% every year and consequently the pension also have been increasing 3% every year does not seems practically correct. For eg. a person in particular rank (say Color Sub Maj ) with 30 years service will be drawing same basic salary irrespective of his year of retirement, whether it is 20012, 13 or 15. Moreover, pension of JCOs/OR is given on the basis of 'notional pay' arrived at on the basis of 6th pay commission pay commission salary of the every rank/years of service and a person and all persons in a particular rank and service retiring are getting same pension. The pension is not at all increasing every year.

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  4. OR ko kon puchta hai.
    Only peanuts.

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  5. commissioned officers are misguiding the govt representative but they will not succeed in their formula of every year pension fixation. please try for PBORs who get very little pension and nobody is worried about them

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  6. I had requested regarding the orop pension. In all previous pay commission the PENSION of Captain & honorary Captain is Same ic RS 16145. But in proposed OPOR Captain Pension shell be RS 25600 Raised pension RS 9455,Honorary Captain shell be getting only RS 1760 in orop. This should be same as per Previous pay commissions. My last Comments has not Published.Similarly the useful comments by lower Ranks are not PUBLISHED as per majorities of EX-SERVICEMEN.Hoping this time it will be published.And there should not be any DISCRIMINATION.Looking for Positive reply.

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