Parrikar on two-day visit to Jaipur from tomorrow

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will be on a two-day visit to Jaipur from tomorrow during which he would interact with people to get their views for the next union Budget.
Parrikar will be in Jaipur Rural, the Lok Sabha constituency of Union MoS Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, for about 30 hours, a release from Rathore's office here said.
The defence minister will inaugurate a hospital for ex-servicemen and also address a public gathering. He will interact with youths, farmers, businessmen, housewives and collect their views for the Budget, the release said.
Parrikar pointed out that the government has taken the
historic decision to implement One Rank One Pension (OROP) in November last year and fulfilled the long standing demand of the defence personnel benefitting over 20 lakh ex-servicemen pensioners.

"I am happy to inform that Rs. 3819.33 crore have already been distributed to 18,90,635 defence forces pensioners towards OROP arrears/revised pension," he said.

On health care reforms, Parrikar said the Ministry has completely digitized the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS).
A total of over 47 lakh beneficiaries have been covered under ECHS.
As of now the scheme is being run through 28 regional centres. A total of 1445 civil hospitals have been empanelled to provide cashless treatment to ECHS beneficiaries.
Parrikar said he has directed the Ministry to complete the Married Accommodation Project (MAP) on priority.
This will provide nearly 2 lakh dwelling units for the married personnel near their places of posting.

The third and final phase of MAP is soon expected to be implemented providing 71,000 more dwelling units, he said.