To: militaryveterans@yahoogroups.com
From: bvrao39@hotmail.com
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:01:27 -0400
Subject: [MilitaryVeterans] DISABILITY ELEMENT OF PENSION
By now, those who are affected/interested in general welfare of disabled veterans are aware of the continued disparity in the disability element of pension between the Pre-2006 Veterans on one part and the Post-2006 Veterans along with civilian pensioners on the other side. I am an affected person; Hence desire to write in first person on this topic.
My right leg has been amputated in 1965, after two years of service, and assessed to 80% disability at the time of retirement in 1994. On implementation of 5th CPC, I was given Rs. 2080/- pm towards disability element of pension wef 01 Jan 96. At that time, I fully trusted the Govt of India for its impartiality; Never thought that a civilian pensioner drawing same pension as my service element, with 80% disability would be given higher amount - actually he was given disability element of pension of Rs 4104/-. Parliamentary standing commitee on Defence,in its report in 2003, has highlighted this disparity and has recommended an early resolution of injustice. When no action was taken, I represented to the Air Hqs and to the Air Force Assn - later to The Chief of Air-staff; Even subsequent reminders did not invoke any response.
However, I expected the above anomaly to have been sorted out while implementing the 6th CPC Report by revising the disability element to be at least equal to that granted to civilian pensioners. This too is not done; The letter dated 04 May 09 merely added 40% of the basic amount which was granted from 01 Jan 06.; In fact, there was no revision as the said amount was already incorporated in the earlier Pension revision letter dated 11 Nov 08.
It is pertinent to note that the Para 136.15 of 5th CPC Report itself, in some other context, has drawn attention to the violation of Principle of Equality - stressed that same benefits as are applicable to the Civilian Pensioners should also be extended to the members of the Armed Forces. In spite of this, the order of the supreme court has been violated, while also revising the disability element of pension to pre-2006 veterans effective both from 01 Jan 96 & 01 Jan 06.
The above mentioned situation is to be viewed in the scenario which follows:-
A person with disability would be in permanent lower medical category. Hence, he is barred from promotions to selection ranks, also foreign postings. In my case, there were occasions when the reviewing officers specifically informed me that he would like to withold the exceptional report from me, being restricted to 10% of strength, as it would not yield any useful result to me in terms of better career. In spite of this, when my name appeared in the select list for Wg Cdr rank, it was made subject to medical clearance. Subsequently, I sought and Chief of Air-staff waived this requirement leading to further promotions. What I want to highlight is that , disabled members in armed forces miss their promotions too due to which their Service element of pension would also be less than what would have been had he not been disabled. To compensate for this situation, the disability element of veterans should be at a higher rate than his Civilian counterpart.
I request those who are getting opportunity to involve in the brief for NFDC ON OROP to be aware of the above-mentioned special link of medical fitness for promotions in the Armed forces and the additional losses incurred by disabled veterans as compared to Civilian countrparts. The fact that there had been hardly a couple of mails on the subject of 'DISPARITY IN DISABILITY PENSION' shows that the DISABLED VETERANS, as a class, have reconciled to their fate and hardly have supporters who have appreciated their case.
Jai Hind,
Gp Capt BV Rao(Retd)
