DISINFORMATION DISGUISED AS BONANZA

By Lt Gen Harwant Singh

Granting Rs 2,300 crore to the defence services and claiming that the union government has moved closer to One Rank One Pension (OROP) - and that it’s a bonanza for the armed forces - is in fact a fraud and a cruel joke. Such disinformation was also spread at the time of the 5th Central Pay Commission (CPC) in the 1990s, when the so-called bonanza had instead put the defence services at a great disadvantage, compared to equivalents in the civil services. While nothing better may be expected from the deceitful bureaucracy, the political executive and the media should not let themselves be fooled.

The 6th CPC had placed pensions at 50% of the “minimum of pay for the rank in the pay band”. This implied that within the pay band, where a particular rank started, pension would be 50% of that figure. Bureaucrats changed this sentence to read, “Minimum of pay in the pay band”. This change resulted in the drop of pension of every officer up to the rank of Maj Gen to 50% of the start of the pay band. Therefore the pension of Lt Col to Maj Gen became the same except for the difference in the grade pay.

This mischief was contested in the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) which, based on various rulings by the Supreme Court, set this deceitful act right. Consequent to this ruling by the AFT, the government had no option but to restore the illegally deducted amount from such officers’ pension. Therefore, the bulk of the amount from this Rs 2,300 crore will go towards undoing this wrong. The restoration of illegally deducted pension resulted in a Captain getting Rs 1,500 per month, Major (Rs 4,105), Lt Col (Rs 565), Col (Rs 1,745), Brigadier (Rs 2,995) and Maj Gen Rs 3,650 back in their pensions. Incidentally, this ruling will apply to all affected civil servants and they, too, will be similarly benefited.

ADDITIONAL WEIGHT AGE

Soldiers have been given additional weightage of two years’ service towards their pension. With this, a soldier will get Rs 377 more per month, Havildar (Rs 412) and Junior Commissioned Officer (Rs 461) in their pensions. In the army, 85% retire at the age of 35/37 years and the rest at varying higher ages, with only 0.02 % retiring at the age of 60 years. In contrast, all civilian employees, from peon to Defence Secretary, retire at 60 years. Thus, a soldier who retires at the age of 35/37 would, till he gets to 60, miss out for the next 21/23 years on increasing pay and also gets much less pension. Therefore, even if OROP is finally given to Defence personnel, gains would still substantially fall short of what their counterparts in the civil service get.

Some experts have argued that instead of OROP, the right course would be to provide an alternative job to every Defence personnel up to the age of 60 years. Such suggestions do not take into account the ground realities, where so much money is made in giving jobs to new entrants. Therefore, such a suggestion is utopian and detached from the context of rampart corruption in the Indian setting and further offends the soldier by showing him a pie in the sky.

Of the Rs 2,300 crore, the bulk will go towards setting right the wrong and much lesser amount towards two years’ additional weightage in pension to soldiers and others and a miniscule amount towards double pension cases and handicapped children of veterans.

ILLEGAL DEDUCTION

The Supreme Court, in an earlier ruling, set right another wrong of the bureaucracy, where rank pay granted by the 4th CPC was illegally deducted from the pay of officers of the rank of Captain to Brigadier. From 1986, when the rank pay was granted, to the present times, money has lost its value, and a large number of officers have died, some of them at Kargil. Most of the veterans and widows do not have all the old records of pay as given by the 4th, 5th and 6th CPCs and a plethora of other documents required by the paying authorities. A number of such officers and widows may be as many as 15,000 of the nearly 40,000 affected officers. There is little chance of these 15,000 odd veterans and next of kin (NOK) of deceased officers getting their dues.

The 6th CPC gave nonfunctional upgradation to all central services (51), whereby every officer from these services will retire in the grade of additional secretary, irrespective of vacancies or not. Financial consideration did not come into play in this loot of the treasury. The political class closed its eyes to this plunder, because they were also doing the same. Only the Defence services had to be left out.

Who will identify and punish the bureaucrats who played mischief with the rulings of the 4th and 6th CPCs, which resulted in so much mistrust of the government and pain to the Defence personnel?

The author is a Former Deputy Chief of Army Staff