Tuesday, December 30, 2014
NEW DELHI: Seeking justice for ex-servicemen,
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy today met Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and
raised the issue of one-rank one-pension.
He reminded Parrikar that the implementation of
same-rank same-pension scheme was BJP's 2014 election
promise made by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi during the campaigning at Bhiwani.
In his speech at
Bhiwani, Modi had stated that if BJP came to power after the Lok Sabha
elections, the BJP government would do justice to the ex-servicemen of the armed forces on
the same rank-same pension issue.
One-rank,
one-pension means soldiers of the same rank and the
same length of service get the same pension, irrespective of their retirement
date. For an example, a sepoy who retired in 1995 would get the same amount of
pension as the one who retired in 1996.
According to Swamy,
Parrikar told him that he is seized of the matter and is closely studying the
issue with a view to finding a solution to the satisfaction of
ex-servicemen.
The Defence Minister assured Swamy that an
announcement on the issue of
one-rank one-pension is expected to be made by the
time of the Budget presentation in
February next year.
The decision to
implement the scheme was first announced by former Finance Minister P
Chidambaram in the UPA government's interim Budget in February this year.
Chidambaram had allocated Rs 500 crore for it.
The NDA government had allocated Rs 1000 crore for the scheme in its
July Budget this year.
Besides one-rank
one-pension scheme, Swamy also brought to Parrikar's notice some strategic
issues regarding China's defence capacity.
The modalities being worked out to closely watching, an upgradation that should call for a great applause. Politicians must remain in the limelight without implementing anything .Best to avoid such free publicity to such party meetings over a cup of green tea
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