Centre working on next-best option to one-rank, one-pay

A committee looking into the defence personnel's demand for pay review Thursday made a presentation before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an official release said.

The government seems all set to upwardly revise pension of of ex-servicemen to bring them closer to the long-demanded ‘‘one-rank, one pension"mechanism.

Though holding that full OROP is neither financially nor administratively possible, the government promises to resolve the existing anomalies in the pension structures of ex-servicemen which have been accentuated by the 6th Pay Commission.

On Thursday, cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar, who heads the committee of secretaries (CoS) looking into the issue, made a presentation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He is also said to have discussed the pros and cons of granting the OROP demand based on the nearly two-month study that the committee carried out on the subject.

Others present during the presentation included finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, defence minister A K Antony, home minister P Chidambaram and minister of state (personnel) Prithviraj Chavan. The UPA government has already committed itself to taking a decision on the subject by the end of June in President Pratibha Patil’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament on June 4.

Just before the crucial fourth phase of polling on May 7, the defence ministry had declared that a committee headed by the cabinet secretary had been constituted to ‘‘reduce the gap in the pensionary benefits to officers and jawans, bringing it as close to OROP as possible’’.

Source : Inputs from Times of India and The Hindu.