3 days Ago
Chennai: At least 4.5 lakh new armed forces pensions and family pensioners were added to the Centre's one rank and one pension ( OROP ) scheme, which was revised on July 1, said T Jayaseelan, controller of central defence accounts. Speaking at the 34th week of the ‘Coffee with Controller' event held at the pensioners' office in Teynampet on Monday, he said as per the scheme, uniform pension will be paid to defence personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service, regardless of their date of retirement.
Even if a defence personnel was promoted and served, for instance, as a colonel for one day, they will get full pension along with those who served for five years. Their pension would be refixed once every five years and as per the plan. Arrears as per the revised scheme are being paid in instalments.
In all, more than 25 lakh armed forces pensioners/family pensioners benefit from the OROP scheme. A sepoy who had been getting a pension of 17,699 as of Jan 1, 2016, was revised as per OROP on July 1, 2019, and the pension was increased to 19,726. The sepoy would get 87,000 as arrears from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2022.
In order to address the pensioners' grievances after the Centre started implementing pension through the System for Pension Administration Raksha portal, Jayaseelan started the ‘coffee with controller' (CWC) initiative in Dec 2023. "Pensioners visit us with the grievance and then they meet us," said Jayaseelan, who hails from Thanjavur. Defence pensioners can get themselves registered on 88073 80165 to participate in the grievance redressal campaign.
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