Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Can't make unreasonable OROP concessions: FM

While angry military veterans on Monday refused to budge from their demand for “pension equalization“ at least once every two years, holding that anything else will be the against the “heart and soul“ of the `one rank, one pension' (OROP) scheme promised to them, the government said it was not in a position to give `unreasonable concessions'.“The government statement that there cannot be annual revision of pensions is unfortunate. It hurts us since Parliament as well as both the previous UPA and the current NDA governments have accepted the definition of OROP,“ said Major-General (retd) Satbir Singh, chairman of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement.
While stressing the Centre's commitment to OROP, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said it cannot make concessions which are un reasonable. “I have my own formula and others might have their own formula, but it has to be reasonable and rational. We cannot have an OROP where pensions are revised every month or year ... Can every one come and start asking for annual revision of pension? Can the BSF, CRPF do it? ... You cannot create a liability which future generations have to pay,“ Jaitley told ET Now.
Asked about the fiscal room to implement OROP, Jaitley said: “I have been very vigilant about fiscal prudence. My job is like that of a housewife and I have to measure every rupee that the house spends, so that we don't overspend and then borrow. Once you start borrowing beyond a point, what happened two weeks ago will be repeated frequently. That is not a situation India can accept.“
The definition of One Rank One Pension (OROP) entails payment of uniform pension to military personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement. Moreover, any further enhancement in pension rates has to be automatically passed on to past pensioners.

(Source- TOI)




1 comment:

  1. Mr FM we are agree to review the pension in five year. Please implement orop in its real form otherwise second way will be taken to do it.

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