OROP row: Parrikar to meet ex-servicemen ahead of their meeting with PM

OROP row: Parrikar to meet ex-servicemen ahead of their meeting with PM

New Delhi: In a move to placate the protesting ex servicemen over the One Rank One Pension issue, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will on Monday meet the agitating former defence personnel.

The meeting comes even as the defence veterans have said that they will be knock Prime Minister Narendra Modi's door on August 26 if no announcement on their demand is made by August 25.

Three ex-servicemen Colonel (retired) Pushpender Singh of 3 Grenadiers, Havaldar Major Singh of 3 Sikh Light Infantry and Havaldar (retired) Ashok Chauhan of Signals regiment are on a fast unto death after PM Modi failed to announce the implementation of the scheme during his Independence Day speech.

Asserting that NDA government was committed to implementing OROP, Parrikar had said it was working to fulfil the long-pending demand of the ex-servicemen.

Manohar Parrikar had earlier said that there are "technical difficulties" in implementing the scheme but had insisted that government will fulfil the "assurance" made to the ex-servicemen in this regard.

Asserting that NDA government was committed to implementing OROP, Parrikar had said it was working to fulfil the long-pending demand of the ex-servicemen.

Close to 22 lakh ex-servicemen and over six lakh war widows stand to be the immediate beneficiaries of the scheme, which envisages a uniform pension for the defence personnel who retire in the same rank with the same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement. Currently, the pension for ex-servicemen is based on the Pay Commission recommendations of the time when they had retired.

With PTI inputs