Parrikar asks MoD officials to evolve policy for reducing court cases on pensions

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has directed the Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials to evolve a policy for reducing court cases in service matters including pensions.

"Minimization of litigation is a priority and I have instructed the concerned officers to evolve a policy for reducing court cases in service matters including pensions as well as in issues of cantonments pertaining to land management and civilian interface," Parrikar said in a message on the occasion of the Good Governance Day today.

"The Public Grievances are being forwarded to the concerned officers using online methods. In this context, I have directed all concerned to accord utmost importance to time- bound disposal of Public Grievances in the Ministry as also regular monitoring of the pendency of Public Grievances by senior officers," he added.

Parrikar said the Government of India is celebrating 25th December as Good Governance Day, adding that the Ministry of Defence takes pride in joining this occasion for bringing in transparency and accountability in its working.

"Greater emphasis is being given to the use of technology in order to make the system prompt and efficient and to bridge the divide between the government and the citizens," Parrikar said.

"Ministry of Defence has adopted a number of Good Governance initiatives like promoting e-Governance, e-Procurement, Biometric Attendance, Jeevan Pramaan, Digitization of records, online disposal of Public Grievances and use of online monitoring of the status of Court/Tribunal/NHRC cases. An Intra-MoD Portal has been developed for supporting these applications in the Ministry," he added.

Parrikar said Directorate General of Defence Estates has made good progress in digitization of Defence Land records.

"History division of the Ministry has also digitized War Records. Several other digitized records viz. Recruitment Rules, civil lists etc are likely to be placed on our website very soon," he added.

Parrikar further said this Ministry is committed to early implementation of One Rank One Pension for the Armed Forces and measures are being taken for the same.