"Implement OROP as per UPA Govt's order of 2014": Congress Ex-Servicemen Dept

New Delhi [India], September 16 : Congress' Ex-Servicemen Department on Saturday said that the Central Government should implement the One Rank One Pension scheme as per the order passed by the UPA government in February 2014.
Party's Ex-Servicemen department said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his recent visit to Ladakh met with the Ex-Servicemen and they explained to him how wrongly BJP is implementing this scheme.
"In a conversation with Ex-Servicemen, they told him how wrongly OROP has been implemented, and how the Agnipath scheme is harming the safety security and integrity of the nation and also destroying the future of the youth. After completion of four years, Agniveers will neither get any pension nor other benefits and instead, they will again become unemployed. Moreover, the employability restrictions imposed on the employment of Agniveers will affect the operational effectiveness of the units and will simultaneously burden the regular soldiers," an official statement read.
"While issuing orders for passing OROP-2 on 23 Dec 2022, under sustained pressure of Bharat Jodo Yatra which was entering Delhi, Modi Govt induced further anomalies by reducing pensions of JCOS and Other Ranks by few thousand per month. Though no one has got actual OROP, but whatever benefits have been passed, they are lesser for JCOS and ORS as per their legitimate right," it added.
Party's ex-service department further mentioned that under the current OROP scheme benefits are being reduced to JCOS and Other Ranks which is causing large-scale heartburn among junior cadres of the defence fraternity which has created a divide among cadres and is not good for the country's defence forces.
"We demand from Modi Govt that OROP anomalies should be corrected immediately without any further delay. It is the Modi govt that is causing divide and not the opposing and it is the responsibility of the Govt to correct its follies.Congress party reiterates its stand once again that we shall implement full OROP as per UPA Govt's order of 2014," an official statement said.
The decision to implement OROP was taken by the Narendra Modi government on November 7, 2015, with benefits effective from July 1, 2014. OROP was a long-standing demand of the armed forces and implies that retired soldiers of the same rank, who have retired after serving for the same length of service, will receive the same pension, irrespective of the date and year of their retirement.
The Union Cabinet, headed by PM Modi in December 2022 approved the revision of the pension of Armed Forces Pensioners/family pensioners under One Rank One Pension (OROP) with effect from July 1, 2019. Pension of the past pensioners would be re-fixed on the basis of the average of minimum and maximum pension of defence forces retirees of the calendar year 2018 in the same rank with the same length of service.