Revise pension of ex-servicemen with every pay revision:Lidder

Former Chief of Integrated Defence Staff Lt Gen Hardev Singh Lidder today appealed to the government for revising the pension of ex-servicemen with every pay revision as in the case of other services to resolve the 'one rank, one pension' row once and for all.
"There is no VRS for jawans who are discharged after completion of 20 years to keep the army young and given pension on the basis of pay drawn at that particular time and thus suffer injustice. Either the government should raise the retirement age or revise the pension after every pay revision," he said.
Earlier, the jawans were getting 70 per cent pension on retirement which compensated them to some extent but it was reduced to 50 per cent during the regime of Indira Gandhi while on the other hand, the pension of other services was also increased to 50 per cent after 20 years of service which is a "travesty of justice", he claimed.

There was no cogent reason for different retirement age for army personnel and the age of superannuation should be uniform irrespective of the fact that whether they get promotion and higher ranks, Lt Gen (retd.) Lidder said adding that this pattern is being followed in civil services.
He said that it was an irony that there had never been any representative of Armed forces in successive pay commissions and their fate was decided by the bureaucrats, who had no idea of the functioning of army and the problems and hardships faced by them.
"The proposed committee to be set up to resolve residual issues should consist only of army officers to ensure that justice was not denied to ex-servicemen struggling for OROP for past 40 years," he said.