New Delhi: Amid stepped up demand for One-Rank-One-Pension, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, on Friday said there are "technical difficulties" in implementing it but 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 said it was working to fulfil the long-pending demand of the ex-servicemen. "We will fulfil the assurances that we have given in this regard... When we have said this, the government has to do it within its tenure and we will do it quite early. We are bound by our assurance. We will comply with our assurance," he said.
Parrikar, however, said "there are are technical difficulties" in implementing OROP.
A group of ex-servicemen are on a protest at Jantar Mantar for two months demanding early implementation of OROP. Earlier on Friday, Delhi Police tried to evict them on the grounds of security ahead of Independence Day celebrations. However, later, Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi said they have been allowed to continue with the protest.
The Narendra Modi government has been maintaining that it is committed to OROP, a key promise made during Lok Sabha polls.
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.
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