Welfare of defence veterans our priority: Sitharaman

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said that welfare of the defence veterans is a priority for Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government

While addressing a gathering here at the inaugural event of a war memorial, Sitharaman urged the defence personnel and veterans to retain faith in the leadership of Prime Minister Modi's leadership, under which several long pending issues pertaining to serving service personnel were addressed.

"This government has always strived to reach out to our veterans to ensure them of all the possible help, be it welfare measures, resettlement or medical care.

"In the last five years, we have fulfilled many long pending issues of our serving service personnel, the ex-servicemen and also of the dependence, the OROP, the national war memorial, the museum, they were all pending for years and it was under the able guidance of PM Modi, that they were fulfilled. He has addressed the issues in a certain time frame," she said.

The defence minister said that a sum of Rs 10,795.4 crore has been disbursed for the defence pensioners as arrears payments on account of implementations of the OROP.

"Almost 70000 wards of the ex-servicemen have been benefitted under the prime minister's scholarship scheme and Rs 150 cr have been disbursed since 2014-15. We have fulfilled some of the expectations of our veterans and are committed to many more in the coming years. What we need today is your trust in us, trust in the Prime minister and the welfare of the veterans is always on our top priority," she added.

Sitharaman further lauded the Prime Minister for fulfilling the commitment of building a war memorial made by then-President Pranab Mukherjee.

"We waited for several decades for this day. This memorial will remind us of our soldiers. President in his speech during the joint session of Parliament on June 9, 2014 made a commitment of building a national war memorial to honour gallantry of our soldiers and today our government under the leadership of PM Modi has fulfilled that commitment.