Year of Next of Kin: Army plans 'ultimate run'; works on resolving their pending issues

The Army has organised and planned a number of events to mark the 'Year of Next of Kin' -- from ultimate run to lectures, officials said on Wednesday.

Staffers of the Directorate of Indian Army Veterans (DIAV) have delivered a number of lectures and presentations on entitlements of next of kin, in formations to raise awareness among the units and family members, and more are in the offing.

The DIAV has also collected data of the next of kin who have pension accounts in SBI and PNB, officials said.

"Records of 3.5 lakh next of kin pensioners were received which were diligently sifted and sorted, state-wise and district-wise for dissemination to various army formations. This data included address and mobile phones of the next of kin linked to their pension account and thus was usable in reaching out to them," a senior official said.

The Army has declared this year as the 'Year of the Next of Kin' and a number of initiatives are being planned to address their immediate concerns and institutionalise systems to look after them, officials said.

A run is being organised as part of this theme in which around 7,500 people are planned to participate.

'The Ultimate Run' is dedicated to the next of kin and disabled soldiers of the Indian armed forces and will be organised on October 19 at Cariappa Parade Ground here, the Army said.

"Ten paraplegics from Paraplegic Rehabilitation Centre in Pune and eight paraplegics from Delhi will also participate in it. School children will run along with them. Differently-abled children from ASHA school will also participate and sing a song," the officials said.

In order to reach out to the next of kin residing at non-military stations, the DIAV approached director general of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) for reaching out to them through cadets, they said. The outreach is progressing under the aegis of the DG of the NCC.

"As many as 850 commanding officers (COs) were made aware of the benefits entitled to next of kin of battle casualties and physical casualties, and also urged to revisit the cases of battle casualties and physical casualties since 2001 to ascertain if the next of kin had received all the benefits," the senior official said.

All COs have pro-actively reached out to their unit and raised the pending issues with Principal Controller of Defence Accounts, he said.

"The DIAV also carried out a study to identify cases of unpaid Army Casualty Welfare Fund Kargil ACWF(K) grants, which revealed that in the period 2011-2015, more than 1,000 cases had not been paid the second tranche of the ACWF(K) grant," he said.

"The DIAV along with record offices commenced an exercise to identify actual pending cases to process pending second tranche cases. ACWF looks after a total of Rs 425 cr," he added.

A case for relaxation of upper age limit in respect of wives of martyred soldiers for the all-India examination conducted by the UPSC, has been taken up by adjutant general with the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare to allow upper age relaxation of up to 37 years, the officials said.