Orop Case Study

BACKGROUND – WHY THE CONFLICT?

The OROP scheme was terminated by the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1973, through an ex-parte decision during the tenure of Indian National Congress led by Indira Gandhi. Also, in 2008, the United Progressive Alliance led by Dr. Manmohan Singh, disregarded OROP for armed forces and granted OROP to present as well as the future civil servants, at the apex pay grade i.e. the highest pay grade. It also granted the Non-functional financial upgradation (NFU) to the bureaucrats and created many new posts at the apex pay grade scale, so as to make all the civilians eligible for apex OROP pension. This highly infuriated the veterans and the agitation has been on the rise since then.

In order to control the

High inflation in the recent years and vulnerability in the old age necessitates higher pension to live a dignified life after a dignified service period.

GOVERNMENT’S PERSPECTIVE: ARGUMENTS AGAINST OROP

1. The implementation of OROP for the army personnel could lead to similar demands from various other departments such as paramilitary forces, local police etc.
2. OROP will be very costly for the government and would put a huge burden. This is not a one time cost which is to be paid. According to the government, ₹ 8000-10000 crore is the amount that is needed for pensions plus the arrears sums up to about ₹12000 crore.
3. The government fears that huge amount such as ₹22000 crore may also lead to unsustainable pension bills
4. Legally, the official who retired 30-40 years back cannot be granted the same pension as that of a current retiree. Also, according to OROP, an army official retiring from the post of Colonel who served for 5 years for the post will receive the same pension as that of an official retiring from the same post but served only for 2 years. This itself is a big legal challenge in itself.
5. On the administrative grounds, there are lack of old written records and it is very cumbersome to reconcile older cases due to lack of

Some ex-servicemen even tried to set fire to their medals, but were prevented from doing so by their colleagues. There are various points of disagreement between the government and ex-servicemen. They are listed as follows:
1. Equalisation of pension every year, i.e. the ex-servicemen want the revision of pension every year instead of five years as proposed by the government.
2. Fixation of pension of old retirees to maximum of the current retiree, whereas, the government has fixed it to the average of the minimum and maximum of the current retiree.
3. Exclusion of army men seeking premature retirement (PMR) because in the Indian army, almost 70% are premature retirees.
4. Set up of one judge judicial commission which will submit its report in six months must be replaced by a five member judicial commission comprising of three army veterans, one government representative and one nominated member which would submit the report in a month.
5. The base year for calculating the pensions should be 2013-14, i.e. from 1 April 2014 and not 2014-15, i.e. 1 July