A section of ex-servicemen protesting under the banner of Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) for “rightful” implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP) wrote a letter in blood to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to mark two years of their protests at Jantar Mantar.
“It is an unfortunate day for our country that erstwhile soldiers and now veterans have been sitting on the road side for two years. For only asking the government that you had made a scheme, you had announced it… but you have not delivered your assurance. Today we want to express our anguish through a letter signed by all of us present here in blood. Our aim is to at least ignite the PM’s consciousness,” Maj. Gen. Satbir Singh (retd.), IESM Chairman, told The Hindu .
Maj. Gen. Singh said Mr. Modi had time to meet militants and terrorists but had no time to meet his own soldiers.
“You do not listen to us, you have not replied to even one letter of ours. We humbly appeal to you to talk to us, give us a hearing and then decide,” he appealed to Mr. Modi, even as several hundred veterans signed the petition in blood in the background at Jantar Mantar.
OROP implies uniform pension to personnel based on rank and length of service and irrespective of the date of retirement.
Key promise
OROP was one of the key election promises of the BJP in the run-up to Lok Sabha polls in 2014.
However, with delay in announcement by the government, ex-servicemen sat on protests.
Eventually the government issued the formal notification implementing OROP on November 7.
While most veteran groups welcomed the announcement, a small section of them under the IESM rejected it saying it was incomplete and deviated from the accepted definition as approved by Parliament.
Maj. Gen. Singh said Defence Minister Arun Jaitley had not responded to any of their letters since he took additional charge of the Ministry.
“It is not about money but what is rightfully ours. We will continue to protest till it is met,” Maj. Gen. Singh added.
The major demands of the veterans are equalisation of pension every year and not five years, implementation from April 2014 and not July 2014, take the highest pay scale of 2013 for revising pension and not the average scale as announced by the government.