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| Ex-soldiers reiterate pension parity demand | | | New Delhi, Sept 14
When the Indian Ex-servicemen's Movement held their meeting on Sunday afternoon in the Capital, the crowd was much smaller than the February rally.
Though Major-General (retired) Satbir Singh, the secretary- general of the movement, said, "Today's was not a rally. We had just called our state conveners to return 5,000 medals that they had collected from the various states." They are demanding that the government should accord "One rank, One pension" to the servicemen. The people in themovement claim that the government has allowed differences to remain among retiring soldiers by retaining the pre-2006 and post-2006 distinction for armed forces retirees.
In this year's Union budget, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had announced that the distinctions in terms of calculating pensions for soldiers retiring before 1996, between 1996 and 2005 and after 1 January, 2006 were being removed.
He said it would be divided into two slabs - pre-2006 and post- 2006. But the veterans are not happy. Maj-Gen. Singh said, "After 16 years of service, a sepoy retiring before 1 January, 2006, draws a pension of Rs 5,461 per month as compared to another sepoy with the same period of service retiring after 1 January, 2006, getting Rs 7,045 per month." The organization sees a political motive behind this. Maj-Gen. Singh said, "I was
present at a seminar organised by the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis two months ago. There the director of the institute, N. S. Sisodia had said the government should not give too much prominence to the armed forces as the country could countenance an Army takeover.
That could be a reason why the government is not accepting our demand."
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