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Friday, February 8, 2013

A Tale of Two Departments – Part II


As discussed in this earlier blog titled ‘A tale of two departments’, while the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ welfare (DoPPW) continues to push for pensionary reforms on the civil side, just the opposite can be said about the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare which views defence pensioners as its adversaries.

The DoPPW continues to take the views of all stakeholders before issuing fresh policies and for removing the anomalies in existing policies. The meetings between employee/pensioner organizations and the staff side are routinely followed up by Action Taken Reports (ATRs), a latest example of which can be viewed by clicking here, and the parleys between various stakeholders is also a continuous process.

On the defence side, while it is understandable that serving defence personnel cannot directly agitate their grievances due to the prohibition of unionism, what stops the Defence Ministry to have a similar recognised official mechanism for veterans and their families?

It’s the worst irony of our times that the department of ex-servicemen welfare, which is supposed to look after the interests of ex-servicemen, itself becomes their sworn enemy by filing mindless appeals against favourable verdicts rendered for veterans by courts and tribunals and also by stonewalling and opposing every single progressive move initiated by the Services HQ or veteran organizations. To sample this animosity, I would not be off mark when I say that 90% of appeals filed by the MoD in the Supreme Court are against disabled soldiers. Sad.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

It should rather be renamed Axe Servicemen's Welfare- true to its credentials so far?

Wg Cdr IP Singh(Retd) said...

In a democracy, the real power is vested in your vote and politicians understand and DUMHILAO only for vote. On others they show their powers. We the affected lot has to understand this and collectively show this power of vote in 2014 so that they HILAO their DUM infront of us, a group of over 10 laks voters of defence personnel retired and serving and force them to change the existing set up of MOD so as to have proper representation of service personnel in MOD especially in deciding on policies related to pay, pension and allowances.

dattatreyahg said...

Discussing and debating these issues among ourselves achieves only the limited objective of educating ourselves. There must be a mechanism that can compel those Babus, political figures,defence analysts,Services Hqs,Opinion leaders and the general public to read every word that is being wrtten here and elsewhere,so that they know that all of them will be held accountable for the results of their actions & inactions, just as it happened in 1962

Library for Retired Defence Personnel said...

Sir, The Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare must take sincere care & interest to look after the welfare of the Defence Pensioners and their family members and not to view them as its adversaries.

Civil take proper care of the civil, hence Uniform must take proper care of the uniform. What I suggest is that the MOD and the Department of Ex-servicemen Welfare must be managed by Uniformed Armed Forces Personnel and Ex-servicemen. And these Departments must be manned with minimum of 70% personnel from Armed Forces/Ex-servicemen.

Anonymous said...

Officers aur jawano ka 1/2 paisa to CDA(O) pune aur PAO(OR) me rah jata hai for not their correct adjustment. Beoz CDA(O) Pune aur PAO(OR) mein baithe hai civil babu unko patha nahi hai Claim kaise kiya jata hai. Aur na hi defence ko clear bata pate hai. I Urges to AHQ plz provide all policy letter relating with pay & allowances post in army website, all can see and take action to get their proper right from govt.

Unknown said...

Hi, The Govt. of India Order of Sept,2009 grants the award of disability pension to all personnel who retired with disabilities attributable to service wef 1.1.2006 .There is no consideration for those who had retired prior to 2006 with similar disabilities. With the latest judgement of SC, that cut-off date is discriminatory for pension related issues,can this be taken up with the Govt to include pre-2006 retirees also for similar benefit.
ashok ahooja Sq.ldr. (Retd)reads.tp 1602

Lt Col(Retd) R S Dasila said...

The officials/staff in DoPPW are aware that they are going to become the pensioners tomorrow where staff
in Department of Ex Servicemen Welfare know that they will never become the Ex-Servicemen. Hence the difference of functioning and attitude of two departments of the same ministry. It is, therefore,
pertinent to demand for the employment of Ex-Servicemen in Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare. It will have two distinct
advantages, one, avenue for creating employment for the defence personnel who are retiring early and second, they being ex-servicemen would certainly look after the interest of the ex-servicemen.

Anonymous said...

Has any retired officer got the payment of-
1. arrears on account of rank pay
2. improved pension as per PCDA(P)
circular No. 500.
I am drawing pension from SBI and have not received any payment on the above counts so far.

Mahesh said...

The prime work of Deptt of ex ser is to allot Security agency and earn money. Otherwise everything is secondary. And these security agency through Dalals who ultimately exploit the grave needy es servicemen.

Lt Col(Retd) CK Kaushik said...

For Info of all concerned please. I have received arrears of IV CPC amounting to Rs 125,777.00 today. I was Maj as on 01 Jan 1986, was promoted to Lt Col(SG) on 29 Apr 1988 & retired on 31 Jul 1994..
Thanks to Maj Dhanapalan & RDOA.

Lt Col(Retd) CK Kaushik
ckaushik42@gmail.com