OROP: It's time for veterans to show some grace
First up, a declaration of interest: while I don't come from a military family, my wife Kahini does. My father-in-law, Admiral Ramesh Arte, AVSM, a decorated naval officer, passed away last October. My mother-in-law, Nirmala Arte, pre-deceased him. No one in my wife's family is therefore entitled to any benefit from one rank, one pension (OROP).
That said, the government's announcement of OROP last Saturday leaves some loose ends. They need to be tied up swiftly if what is a historic development for our men and women in uniform is not to turn into a farcical point-scoring battle between opposition parties, ex-servicemen and the government.
The contours of the OROP scheme announced by defence minister Manohar Parrikar are now well-known. The key discrepancy, rectified by the prime minister's intervention on Sunday, lay in one sentence that was slipped into the official note (presumably by a Machiavellian bureaucrat) issued by the ministry of defence: "Personnel who voluntarily retire will not be covered under the OROP scheme."
There is of course no such thing as "voluntary retirement" in the armed forces. Officers can retire prematurely after a minimum of 20 years of service in order to be eligible for pension. Jawans can do so after 15 years. OROP will apply retrospectively to armed forces personnel (jawans and officers) who retire after completing, respectively, 15 or 20 years of service, which qualifies them for pension.
To protect the armed forces' youthful robustness, OROP must, however, apply prospectively as well. Consider a 40-year-old commissioned officer who joined the Army as a 20-year-old lieutenant in 1995. He will now be eligible for OROP in 2015 having completed 20 years of pensionable service. What about a 20-year-old officer commissioned today? Would he be eligible for OROP at the age of 40 in 2035?
The basic principle should be this: once a jawan or officer is eligible for pension, he or she should be eligible for OROP - both retrospectively and prospectively. Injured or disabled military personnel who retire prematurely would of course be eligible for OROP irrespective of length of service.
As an example of poor drafting and lack of clarity, the brief note issued by the defence ministry stood out. The press conference to announce such a landmark decision was desultory. Flanked by the three service chiefs - Admiral Robin Dhowan, General Dalbir Singh and Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha - the defence minister, head glued to the note in front of him, read out the text. None of the service chiefs spoke. The defence minister did not take questions. For a historic announcement that the military had waited 42 years for, it was an anti-climax.
To sum up the dry facts and remaining areas of contention:
1. OROP will apply from July 1, 2014. The veterans want OROP to apply from three months earlier - April 2014.
2. The base year for calculation will be calendar 2013. The veterans want the base year to be 2013-14 - that is, an effective date of March 31, 2014.
3. Equalisation of OROP will take place over five years.The veterans want to compress this period to a maximum of two years.
4. A one-man judicial commisision will be set up to adjudicate contentious issues and submit a report within six months. The veterans want three of their members in a five-man commission to submit the report in one month.
Arrears willl be paid in four equal half-yearly installments to around 24 lakh veterans. Six lakh widows will receive their arrears in one lump sum. The total annual budget for OROP is estimated at between Rs 8,000 and Rs 10,000 crore. Arrears will add up another Rs 12,000 crore. Thus the outgo in this financial year (assuming disbursement of two half-yearly instalments of Rs 3,000 crore each and the widows' full pension) would be around Rs 18,000 crore. The overall annual pension budget is currently Rs 54,000 crore. The recurring extra annual outflow of Rs 10,000 crore (excluding arrears) thus represents a manageable increase of 18 per cent.
The extra money in the hands of 30 lakh veterans and widows will spur consumpton and indirectly boost the economy - a positive corollary of OROP for those who find the budgetary arithmetic difficult to digest.
Beyond the numbers lies the politics. The Congress-led UPA-2 government in 2010 had declared OROP "technically, financially and administratively not implementable". But shortly after the announcement of OROP on Saturday, former defence minister AK Antony, who rarely spoke during his tenure in UPA-1 and UPA-2, waxed eloquent about how disappointed the Congress was with the government's decision.
Meanwhile, the head of the Indian Ex-Servicemen's Movement (IESM), General (retired) Satbir Singh, whose political affiliations have been called into question, has rejected the OROP as it stands today. He said that while the veterans' fast unto death had being called off, the relay hunger strike and agitation would continue. The key contention remains the provision for revising OROP every five years to equalise pensions with ranks. The veterans say this will lead to anomalies during the stretched five-year period.
The government maintains that an annual equalisation will be an administrative nightmare for an average benefit to veterans over five years of around Rs 33 crore a year - or Rs 40 per month on average per veteran (a figure the veterans themselves have publicly endorsed). The administrative cost could be more than the extra funds disbursed.
Beyond the minutiae of numbers resides the unfortunate truth: by delaying OROP for so long and making drafting bloopers in a hastily convened press conference, the government has lost an opportunity to take full ownership of a landmark reform.
Ex-servicemen who should be celebrating are glum though the "silent majority" are quietly happy away from the limelight. Their leaders, however, speak with an eye on the Bihar and Punjab Assembly elections. If General Singh has his way, "three lakh veterans" will descend on Bihar to campaign against the BJP (and by implication for Lalu Yadav, a convict in the fodder scam).
In the coming days, some of the ambiguities over OROP will be ironed out. The application of OROP prospectively to those who are eligible for pension remains a point of debate. It has been insufficiently addressed both by the government and the media.
This nonetheless is a historic development that will benefit over 30 lakh ex-servicemen and widows and 13 lakh men and women currently in uniform. Along with their families, that makes a total of more than two crore people.
It is vital, therefore, to dispel continuing doubts over OROP cast by motivated groups among agitating veterans and their political supporters. India's armed forces protect the nation at the border and are the first to help when calamity strikes - floods, earthquakes or riots. They deserve better - from both the government and their own intransigent veteran leaders.
As India marks the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war with Pakistan, the bravery of the veterans who fought in that war - and of the widows they left behind - needs a fitting tribute. OROP to all, past and present, jawans and officers, is what the nation owes them.