Dissatisfied with what they termed as shortcomings in the announcement of One Rank One Pension (OROP), the ex-servicemen of the region have decided to hold a ‘Maha rally’ in Mohali on Sunday. Far from receiving accolades from retired defence personnel, the Centre has come in for severe criticism from the veterans’ community in the region for the OROP. Speaking to The Sunday Express, Col Charanjit Singh Khaira (retd) of the Ex-Servicemen Joint Action Front Sanjha Morcha, said conditions imposed in OROP were not acceptable to the veterans. “The dharnas and relay hunger strikes will escalate in every district and capitals of the states,” Col Khaira said in a statement issued in Chandigarh. “The announcement seems to have been apolitical compulsion of the government keeping in mind the Bihar elections which is why several crucial issues have not been decided,” he added [related-post] President of Ex-Servicemen Grievances Cell, Lt Col SS Sohi (retd), said the government has not come clean while announcing OROP. “There have been so many committees formed on OROP which led us nowhere in 40 years so what is the use of forming another one,” Lt Col Sohi said. He added that the bureaucracy does not even understand that the defence services have no concept of Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) and the premature retirement which is taken by defence personnel is a different concept altogether. The most severe reaction to the OROP announcement has been to the clause which says that OROP will not be applicable to those who took voluntary retirement. Speaking to The Sunday Express, Major General K Khorana (retd), who took premature retirement after 35 years of service and just eight months before retirement, said that the government “was making a fool of the defence personnel”. Maj Gen Khorana said, “It is an insult to the veterans and an attempt is being made to create a class within class. They are violating the basic service conditions”. Deputy Leader of th Congress in Lok Sabha and former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh described the announcement as an “half-hearted and half-baked attempt sans sincerity”. He supported the reservations expressed by the ex-servicemen about the decision, saying if the government’s intentions were really sincere it should have addressed the issue reasonably while taking into consideration the long pending genuine demands of the veterans. Capt Amarinder questioned the logic behind denying OROP to those who seek voluntary retirement. “This is the most unreasonable clause”, he remarked, while asking, “why deny someone the OROP benefit when he is already eligible for the pension?” The former Punjab Chief Minister also supported the veterans’ demand for expanding the strength of the one man judicial commission, appointed for removing anomalies in the OROP, to five with three veterans as its members.
