Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a rally in Faridabad.
Clearing the air on the servicemen who have taken early retirement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said they will be eligible to receive the benefits of the One Rank One Pension scheme.
But the ex-servicemen, who are on their 88th day of protest for the implementation of OROP, said they would call off the stir only after all of their demands -- involving equalisation of pension, base year and judicial commission -- were met.
"80 per cent people in the army work in junior posts, fight from the front lines and have to retire after 15 or 17 or 20 years... some feel that these people will not get the benefit of OROP. But they will be among the first to get the benefits," the PM said at a rally in Faridabad.
Ex-servicemen who have been injured or disabled in the line of duty will also get the benefits. "It would not occur to this Prime Minister that they should not be receiving OROP... People are being misled about the government position on OROP and VRS," PM Modi said.
The government announced the long-awaited scheme on Saturday. But there has been confusion over whether premature retirement rule would keep ex-servicemen out of the new benefits.
At Delhi's Jantar Mantar, where the protests are on, Satbir Singh, one of the ex-servicemen, said they thank PM Modi for the decision and will ask their "bothers" to call off the indefinite hunger strike. But the stir will be on.
"We will get back to hunger strike till death if the government does not approve our demands," he added.
Indicating the reason for the delay in implementation of OROP, PM Modi said the estimate of Rs 500 crore was a miscalculation by the previous government.
"We also thought it would be a maximum of Rs 700 crore... But then every day new things kept coming up... Finally, it was summing up to Rs 8,000 to 10,000 crore," he said.
Taking another dig at the Congress, which led the previous UPA government, the Prime Minister said those who have done nothing to implement OROP for 40 years, "have no right to speak, or speak on behalf of jawans."