ONE RANK ONE PENSION SCHEME - GOVERNANCE
News:
OROP arrears case | Supreme Court asks Centre to pay ₹28,000 crore dues by
February 2024
● The
Supreme Court gave the government leeway to pay in instalments ₹28,000 crore in
arrears due to veterans under the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme.
Key takeaways:
● The
staggered payment of OROP arrears would be made to various categories of
eligible pensioners, totalling 21 lakh persons, from April 2023 till February
2024.
One Rank One Pension (OROP):
● OROP
means the same pension, for the same
rank, for the same length of service, irrespective of the date of retirement.
● Before
OROP, ex-servicemen used to get pensions as per the Pay Commission’s
recommendations of the time when they had retired.
● The
implementation of the scheme was based on recommendation of the Koshiyari committee, a 10 member
all-party parliamentary panel formed under the chairmanship of Bhagat Singh
Koshiyari.
● Armed
Forces Personnel who had retired till
30th June 2019 are covered under it.
How is the pension fixed?
● Pension
of the past pensioners would be re-fixed on the basis of average of minimum and
maximum pension of defence forces retirees of calendar year 2018 in the same
rank with the same length of service.
Nodal Implementation Agency
- Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare, Ministry of Defence.
Need for OROP:
● In
view of the need of the defence forces to maintain physical fitness, efficiency
and effectiveness, personnel retire at
an early age compared to other agencies of the government.
● A
sepoy in the army and equivalent rank in navy and air force retire after 17-19
years of service and officers retire before attaining the age of 60 years.
● Before
the implementation of OROP, the computation of pension was linked to the pay
drawn by the personnel in a particular pay scale at the time of his/her
retirement.
● Pay
scales were revised to the higher side generally on the recommendation of Pay
Commissions. As such, the personnel retiring after the revision of the pay
scales got more pension than those who had already retired. Hence, the gap
remained in the pension of the past and present retirees.
Significance:
● OROP
bridges this gap between the rates of pension of current and past pensioners at
periodic intervals.
● The
OROP scheme was implemented with retrospective effect from July 1st, 2014 with
2013 as the base year.
Challenges Ahead:
1. Financial problems
- Grant of full OROP will bloat the government’s pension bill.
2. Administrative problems
- It is a tedious task to pass all the benefits.
3. Legal issues
- It will lead to similar demands by other government employees especially
paramilitary forces.