Defense Ministry responds to citizens’ petition to President

   The Union Ministry of Defense has responded the  Citizens’ petition on soldiers’ demands, forwarded to the Ministry by the  President of India. The petition was submitted to President Pratibha Devi Singh  Patil on May 23, 2010, by the Joint Panel of Citizens-Soldiers.

   A letter was also addressed to Manjit Singh  Randhawa, convener of the Joint Panel, from Malathi Narayanan, Under-Secretary,  Department of Ex Servicemen Welfare in the Union Ministry of Defense. It stated  the seven actions that needed to be taken to redress grievances of ex servicemen  regarding pension anomalies, to bridge the gap between pre- and post-2006  pensioners.

   Letter from the Defense Ministry said, “As far as One Rank One  Pension is concerned, it has not been approved by the government.” The letter disclosed that the enlisted actions  included Classification Allowance for Personnel Below Office Rank (PBOR) and  removal of linkage of full pension with 33 years from january 1, 2006, revision  of Lieutenant General’s pension after carving out a separate pay scale for them,  bringing of parity between pension of pre- and post-October 10, 1997 PBOR  pensioners, improving of PBOR pensions based on GOM 2006, broad banding of  percentage of disability or war injury pension for pre-January 1, 2006
disability pensioners belonging to category “E” and removal of cap on war injury
element of pension in case of disabled pensioners of category “E”.