Indian Armed Forces Woes

Veterans’ woes

Defence personnel are at a great disadvantage in respect of pay, pension and medical benefits compared with civilian government servants. By MAJOR GENERAL SATBIR SINGH

OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS, EX-SERVICEMEN have been agitating against the injustice meted out to them by the Central government. They have lost faith in the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare (DESW), created specifically to take care of their welfare. Ex-servicemen have won 90 per cent of the cases filed in the Armed Forces Tribunals and the Supreme Court against the government, but the government has appealed in all the cases through the DESW.

The veterans have approached the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister to seek redress in numerous cases where they felt injustice had been done to them but to no avail. The Supreme Court’s judgments in their favour have either not been implemented or not been implemented in letter and spirit in cases pertaining to disability pensions, payment of arrears with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006, rank pay, and hospital charges on authorised Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) rates for medical treatment abroad.

The government files en masse appeals against retired defence personnel whenever any case relating to pension benefits is decided in their favour by any court of law or the Armed Forces Tribunal. Facing the brunt of the government’s apathy is the category of disabled and war-disabled soldiers. Most of the special leave petitions and appeals filed by the Ministry of Defence in the Supreme Court are against the grant of disability or war injury benefits to disabled and war-disabled soldiers. As a result, the veterans are forced into expensive litigation.

Over 3,000 cases decided in favour of defence personnel by the Armed Forces Tribunal have not been implemented; the Defence Ministry has contested all these judgments in the Supreme Court. Imagine the plight of a widow of a sepoy living in a far-flung rural area. How is she going to find the resources to fight her case in the Supreme Court? The tribunals were created for delivering speedy justice to defence personnel at minimum cost. But the Ministry’s decision to appeal against the tribunal’s judgments has not only delayed justice but also made it near impossible for the defence personnel to fight their cases. The Armed Forces Tribunals do not have contempt powers to get their judgments implemented whereas Central Administrative Tribunals (CATs) are vested with such powers.

This is the biggest cause of heartburning in the military community today. Military personnel with non-service-related disabilities discharged with less than 10 years of service remaining are not entitled to any form of pension, whereas the employment of civilian employees who “acquires a disability during his service” is protected under Section 47 of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995.

As per the Sixth Central Pay Commission recommendations, all government servants are allowed three assured career progressions. Civilians who retire at the age of 60 are allowed promotions at 10, 20 and 30 years of service, and soldiers at eight, 16 and 24 years. However, since jawans are forced to retire early, largely between 15 and 19 years of service, to keep up the young profile of the forces, they miss out on at least one assured career progression, unlike their civil counterparts, who serve their full term until superannuation. It has been proposed to the government that the third career progression should be given to jawans automatically; they should be promoted to the rank of naib subedar at the time of retirement. Surprisingly, this demand has not been accepted.

Widow’s pension

Widow’s pension is one area of concern to the defence community that has received little attention from the government. A sepoy’s widow pension has remained a meagre Rs.3,500 a month while other sections of government employees have received periodic increases in such pension. The minimum family pension in respect of defence widows must be enhanced from Rs.3,500 to Rs.10,000 a month.

It is common knowledge that soldiers retire ahead of their time. What is not known, however, is that their life expectancy is shorter than that of civilians. The Institute of Applied Research in Manpower Analysis (IARM), which studied the lifespan of civilian employees at the behest of the Fifth Pay Commission, arrived at 77 years as the average life expectancy of a civilian government servant. The Railways conducted a similar exercise for their personnel and assessed that they achieved an average lifespan of 78 years. No such study was conducted for defence personnel since it was generally believed that soldiers lived longer than civilians. However, Major General (retired) Surjit Singh, AVSM (Athi Vishisht Seva Medal), VSM (Vishisht Seva Medal), who headed the Army Cell of the Fifth Pay Commission, carried out a detailed study in 2005 along with other experts. The study revealed that the average lifespan of defence officers was 72.5 years; that of junior commissioned officers (JCOs) 67 years; and that of other ranks was between 59.6 and 64 years.

These findings were forwarded to the Chief of the Army Staff General J.J. Singh on July 7, 2005, by Lieutenant General (retd) M.M. Lakhera, PVSM (Param Vishisht Seva Medal), AVSM, VSM, who was Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. The findings were reported by all national newspapers and a question was asked in Parliament on the subject. Pranab Mukherjee, who was the Defence Minister then, maintained that the issue would be examined in detail. Nothing was heard about it after that.

Stress and strain of early retirement is one of the major reasons for the lower life expectancy among the defence personnel. Their legitimate demand for an assured second career until the age of 60 through an Act of Parliament has not yet been accepted.

While the pensions of all ranks were enhanced with effect from September 24, 2012, to redress the anomaly of the Sixth Pay Commission, the request to enhance the pension of JCOs proportionately was not granted. Majors with 13 years and more of service who retired before 2004 have been denied the benefit of the rank of lieutenant colonel (that is, the benefit of pay band-4 in the revised scale of the Sixth Pay Commission).

The government’s policy to grant lieutenant colonel rank on completion of 13 years of service was made applicable with effect from 2004. It would have been only just to grant all those who retired before 2004 in the rank of major with 13 years of commissioned service (this number being finite) the benefit of pension on the scale of lieutenant colonel. The strong plea in this regard has not been accepted.

Also, the non-functional upgrade (NFU) granted to civilian employees has been denied to defence personnel, thereby putting them at a disadvantage.

One Rank One Pension

One of the major demands of veterans is same pension for same rank and same length of service, that is, same rank + same length of service = same pension, irrespective of the date of retirement. They want a legislative guarantee to this. Although all major political parties have agreed to this in principle and frequently incorporate it in their election manifestos, this 40-year-old demand has not been implemented. The bureaucratic excuses in the form of administrative, legal and financial hurdles in implementing the demand were heard in detail in 2011 by the Rajya Sabha Petition Committee set up to look into all aspects of the demand and rejected them in the strongest terms. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had agreed to this provision in principle, but her untimely death scuttled the proposal. Successive Standing Committees on Defence and the Rajya Sabha Petition Committee have recommended this but to no avail.

Before 2006, the difference in the pensions of major general and lieutenant general was only Rs.1,400. Subsequently, it became Rs.700. With the extension of higher administrative grade (HAG) and HAG+ to the rank of lieutenant general and above, the difference in pension is more than Rs.8,000 even after the increase with effect from September 24, 2012. The government has overlooked the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, which suggested that all government employees with a basic pay of Rs.20,000 and above be clubbed under the same pay band. Major generals retire with a basic pay of Rs.22,400 and above while lieutenant generals retire with a basic pay of Rs.23,500 and above. Non-inclusion of major generals in HAG has caused an anomaly.

On losing the case, the Defence Ministry filed a review petition in the Supreme Court, denying enhanced arrears to army pensioners as ordered by the Delhi High Court with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006, instead of September 24, 2012.

Civilian employees are provided health care under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) while ex-servicemen are covered under the ECHS. The provision of budget for the CGHS is calculated (for 2013-14) at the rate Rs.10,700 for every beneficiary while for the ECHS, it has been budgeted at Rs.3,150 a beneficiary. As a result, super-speciality hospitals do not offer themselves for ECHS empanelment. Over 80 per cent of the health care units have withdrawn from empanelment in view of delayed payment of bills and inadequate rates for various medical procedures. This has resulted in unsatisfactory or poor medical care for ex-servicemen. Sophisticated procedures have not been included in the ECHS. The veterans’ request for inclusion of the latest medical procedures on the ECHS benefits list has not been accepted yet. Ex-servicemen had requested that the budget be enhanced and not be less than the CGHS rates.

Here is an example to illustrate the poor nature of health care benefits provided by the government to ex-servicemen. Non-availability of funds with the ECHS and, as a consequence, non-payment of hospital dues made an empanelled hospital in Gurgaon in the National Capital Region to stop accepting patients for cashless medical treatment. Ex-Subedar Prakash Chandra Tomar from Meerut was brought to the hospital in a serious condition on December 8, 2013, which as per the ECHS scheme is permitted. The family was asked by the hospital authorities to deposit the money for the treatment or transfer the patient to some other hospital. Since the condition of the patient was serious, the family raised a loan and deposited Rs.11 lakh for 20 days of hospitalisation and treatment.

When the family was in no position to arrange further funds, Tomar’s son, Raj Kumar Tomar, approached the Indian Ex-Servicemen’s Movement (IESM) and the case was taken up with the Managing Director of the ECHS, who promised to get cashless treatment. But he did not succeed. The family deposited another Rs.2 lakh in the hospital. On January 1, Subedar Prakash died. The hospital did not accede to the request of the ECHS to release the body and insisted that the family clear the hospital bills.

In November 2008, the government had announced that in future there would be a separate pay commission for the defence forces. The defence fraternity feels betrayed as the government has not constituted a separate pay commission, and, as in the case of the previous commissions, there is no representation for defence forces in the newly constituted Seventh Pay Commission. Some 39 anomalies in defence pensions are yet to be resolved and with no defence representation in the new pay commission, more anomalies are likely to appear thereby increasing the magnitude of injustice already done to defence pensioners.

Denial of voting rights

It is surprising that serving defence personnel are denied the right to get themselves registered as voters at the place of posting. In spite of a clear judgment by the Supreme Court in 1971, this basic right has not been extended to soldiers. The option of postal ballot and proxy voting available to serving soldiers has not proved effective. There is no restriction imposed in the Representation of the People Act, 1950, to deny this right to defence personnel. There is an urgent need to restore this right immediately to allow serving soldiers to vote at their place of posting in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

The prevailing security environment calls for strong measures to upgrade the country’s defence preparedness in terms of manpower, equipment and weapon systems. Equally important are measures to keep the soldier’s morale high.

Major General Satbir Singh is chairman of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement and a former Senior Fellow and Security Analyst of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis. He can be reached at satbirsm@gmail.com

Alarming shortage of personnel

LATEST COMMENTS:

It is high time we cut the number of armed forces personnel. A conventional war is more or less becoming an impossibility. Pakistan has already declared their intention to go strategic in case of a conflict with India. This was the main reason we decided not to attack them in 2002. 

We need to be wise and reduce the burden of fruitless expenditure.We need a strong government and Defence Minister to articulate this thought process. Our defence strategist should express their opinion and build public acceptance. We can make a good saving and spent it on the economic front.

from: Saji

Feb 24, 2014 at 18:00 IST

OVER the years, the armed forces have lost out in the race to be seen as a lucrative career option for young men and women. The Army is short of 10,100 officers and 32,431 other soldiers, called personnel below officer rank (PBOR). More than 25,000 jawans have gone on premature retirement in the last three years and over 100 officers and other soldiers are committing suicides every year. These figures were provided by Defence Minister A.K. Antony in his replies to Parliament since 2010. It is small consolation that the shortage of officers has come down since 2010. While in 2010 the Army was short of 12,510 officers, in July 2012, the shortage was 10,100 officers.

It is significant that the shortage of both officers and PBOR is not a recent phenomenon but has built up over a long time, since 1971 to be precise, and is the result of a long period of neglect. Figures available until 2009, for example, show that the intake of officer recruits, both on permanent and short service commissions, has been going down over the years (See Table). The shortage, when translated to logistics at the ground level, means serious compromises with standard operating processes which, at times, can be disastrous.

Investigation by Frontline revealed that most units have only 10-12 officers against the sanctioned number of 22-27, and if one takes into account those on leave, or on temporary duty and those attending courses, etc., the effective strength comes down to four of five officers per unit, which normally has a strength of 600-800. “The right amount of supervision is next to impossible in this situation and the first casualty is back-to-basic drills, which are an integral part of the officers’ interaction with the men. This leads to a communication gap between officers and jawans and all other problems follow, like stress, suicides, and fratricide,” said an officer, requesting not to be quoted.

As Frontline reported earlier, stress is a major problem in the army these days and the Defence Minister has asked the Defence Institute of Psychological Research (DIPR) to conduct a study on this problem and take remedial measures, but nothing has been done in this regard yet.

Purnima S. Tripathi

SOLDIER AND HIS VOTE

Right to vote: discriminatory rules

SOLDIERS have been unable to exercise the right to vote, granted to every citizen above the age of 18 years under the Constitution, despite a Supreme Court order . Over 23 lakh personnel of the armed forces and the paramilitary forces cannot vote because, unlike the civilian population, they are not allowed to register as voters at their places of posting. The other options available to them, such as postal ballot and proxy voting, do not really work on the ground.

This situation is the result of a Government of India rule which says that personnel of the armed forces can only register for voting at their places of posting if they have been residing there for at least three years with their families. This rule does not apply to civilians, who are only required to be residents for a minimum of six months in order to register themselves as voters in their places of posting. Anyone familiar with the posting patterns of armed forces personnel would know that it is almost impossible for them to fulfil this condition, with the result that they end up being denied their right to franchise.

It is not as if armed forces personnel were never allowed to vote. Until 1969, they could register as voters in their places of posting. In 1969, at Wokha in Nagaland, the losing candidate moved the Guwahati High Court, claiming that the election result had been impacted by the large number of Assam Rifles personnel who voted against him. He argued that the soldiers, who were not ordinarily residents of the area, could not be allowed to vote. The High Court, however, upheld the result, dismissing his plea. The matter reached the Supreme Court and, in 1971, the Supreme Court too dismissed the appeal, with costs. The Election Commission of India (ECI) had then, as respondents, stoutly defended the soldiers’ right to vote at their places of posting. But despite the verdict, the government came out with a special order in 1972 stating that soldiers were entitled to vote through postal ballots and proxy voting only and that in order to register as voters at their places of posting, they should have resided there for three years with their families.

Since the conditions imposed are next to impossible to fulfil and postal ballot and proxy voting are hardly functional, over 14 lakh armed forces personnel and nine lakh personnel of the paramilitary forces have been deprived of their right to vote. “I come from a defence background and I know. My parents could not vote for 30 years,” says Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Rajya Sabha member, who has been raising issues concerning the armed forces in Parliament, without much result.

He raised a question in the Rajya Sabha on February 5, 2014, asking whether the government was aware that 23 lakh personnel of the armed forces and the paramilitary forces were being deprived of their right to vote and whether the government proposed to take any steps to correct the situation. Defence Minister A.K. Antony admitted that the government was aware of the problem and that the issue was being taken up with the Election Commission.

An open house on this issue was organised in New Delhi on January 20 by the Flags of Honour Foundation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) run by Chandrashekhar. Another NGO, Citizens for Forces, also participated. The session was attended by Election Commissioner H.S. Brahma. The main demands that emerged out of the deliberations were:

• Armed forces personnel, their wives and eligible children should be allowed to vote wherever they are posted. In the event of the wives and the children staying away, they should be allowed to vote at their places of residence.

• There should be no stipulation of a minimum duration of posting for armed forces personnel to be eligible to vote.

• Polling booths should be set up at unit headquarters/ regimental centres.

• Proxy voting has proved to be unsuccessful, so it should be done away with.

• The Election Commission should start an enumeration drive to enrol armed forces personnel as voters. In the event of this not being completed, area commanders can certify the personnel serving in their units and that should serve as a voters’ list.

According to Chandrashekhar, the Election Commissioner assured them that he would look into the demands at the earliest. In fact, H.S. Brahma, true to his word, did write an internal note for circulation among other members of the Election Commission on January 29, 2014 (Frontline has a copy of that letter). He wrote: “It is time the Election Commission of India, with the Ministry of Defence, resolve these long-pending issues as almost 1.5 million officers plus men are affected…. We should engage in discussion with Government of India, especially Ministry of Defence so that if not all, at least some issues can be redressed. We may discuss the issue in ECI and initiate further action as soon as possible.”

Following this note, the matter was indeed discussed with the Government of India and the Ministry of Defence on February 4, 2014, but the outcome of that meeting is not known yet. Official sources, however, told Frontline that the government had agreed to implement some points, like giving voting rights to armed forces personnel in their places of posting, barring some sensitive places like the north-eastern region, Jammu and Kashmir, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

There reportedly is also an agreement to allow the wives and children voting rights at their places of residence. Besides, the government was also in agreement with the Election Commission that postal ballot be made more effective and speedy so that those posted in sensitive places too can participate in the democratic process. The Ministry of Defence officials refused to divulge further details, saying the matter was still under consideration.

When contacted, H.S. Brahma, however, said: “Since I was not present at the meeting I do not know the details, but I believe some agreement has been reached on a few points. As for me personally, I am fully in agreement that soldiers must be given the right to vote at their places of posting, like other citizens.” He said the Election Commission’s position was clear from the beginning: armed forces personnel must be allowed to vote at their places of posting. “We will be very happy to make the arrangements for the 2014 Lok Sabha election too. We are only waiting to hear from the Ministry of Defence,” he said.

The ball is now squarely in the Ministry of Defence’s court because the Election Commission has already set an example by setting up a polling booth for a single individual in the Gir forest at Banej in Gujarat. In fact, Brahma, going a step further, said that the Election Commission would be only too happy to allow people to vote online so that the democratic process could be taken as far and wide as possible and all Indians, no matter in which part of the world they are posted, could vote.

Purnima S. Tripathi

INTERVIEW

‘There is no sensitivity in the system’

PTIGeneral (retd) V.K. Singh.

Interview with General (retd) V.K. Singh. By PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI

GENERAL (RETIRED) V.K. SINGH, former Chief of the Army Staff, confronted the political leadership while in service. He took the government to court on the issue of his age. “The political leadership of the day does not look beyond its nose,” he told Frontline in an interview. The root cause of all the problems facing the forces today, he said, was the lack of sensitivity and the apathy of both the political leadership and the bureaucratic machinery. Excerpts:

There seems to be a great deal of disenchantment among the forces because a large number of issues concerning them, such as salary dues, pension, better health facilities, and redress of their grievances, have remained unaddressed. Why have matters come to such a sorry state? Did you try to address the issues when you were the Army chief?

It is true that there is a great deal of disenchantment among the soldiers because the government has not paid heed to our problems, which have been pending for years. All these issues that you mentioned have been taken up with the Ministry of Defence from time to time, to the extent possible within the existing protocol. But the frustrating part is that nothing happens in the Ministry of Defence. As the Army chief, I tried to improve matters but could not do much. To give you an example, even small things like changing the system through which uniforms are provided to soldiers or harmonising the ration given to jawans vis-a-vis the officers took months on end. But the real problem is that the political leadership has failed to listen to us.

Do you think there is a lack of political will?

The political leadership does not look beyond its nose. Maybe the political will is there but it fails to assert itself on the face of bureaucratic hurdles. The bureaucracy, for some reason, is in the habit of not keeping the forces happy; otherwise, it thinks, we will revolt. Bureaucrats tend to create a smokescreen around the most trivial issues so that they are not called to account for decisions, not asked questions about deals, and so on. But the political leadership should be able to see through this.

Is that the reason why you have donned a public role? You are the first Army chief to take to the streets. Are not generals supposed to walk into the sunset once they retire?

I have been disturbed by the way things are going on in our country. Farmers, youth, and other marginalised sections are all suffering and the government of the day has failed to mitigate their sufferings. When Anna Hazare started the anti-corruption movement I supported that, but the movement dissipated. Then I decided to take the plunge. Somebody has to take the initiative to change the system, change the way the country is run. And I am more than happy with the people’s response. We are the ones who produce results, people look up to us. Soldiers are trained to be leaders and yet they get ignored by the government in the matter of their very basic demands. This must change, and I am going to ensure that this change comes about. The political class ignores us because we are nobody’s vote bank. We would have ideally wanted it to be like that but that has resulted in a situation where we are being denied our dues, even fundamental rights like the right to vote. Once we organise ourselves into a strong block, the governments will listen to us.

Do you think it is possible for the government to allow soldiers the right to vote at their place of posting? Have the Services chiefs taken up the matter with the government or the Election Commission?

We have taken it up many times, but nothing has happened. Of course, it is possible to allow soldiers the right to vote at the place of posting and the Supreme Court has ordered the government to do that. Can you imagine the extent of government apathy that they have denied us the fundamental right to franchise. Why? The options available to us, postal ballot and proxy voting, are useless, not practical at all. Since serving personnel of the forces cannot be seen as airing their demands, it is our duty as veterans to ensure that the just demands of the forces are met.

There are long-pending issues of salary dues since the Fourth Pay Commission. The Seventh Pay Commission has been announced and once again the Services have not been given representation in it.

The only solution is to have military representation in the pay commission. I cannot understand why the government keeps us out of this exercise. The bureaucrats from the Ministry of Defence, who claim to be representing us, have no idea about the military ethos; they don’t understand that for a soldier, salary is not only about money, it is a matter of honour, too. Their lack of understanding has resulted in anomalies, which to date remain unresolved. The government should handle issues relating to the forces with a little sensitivity. There is no problem which cannot be addressed, but there is no sensitivity in the system to do that.

DEFENCE MINISTRY RESPONSE

Positive accommodation: Defence Ministry

THE Ministry of Defence has its own explanations for many of the long-standing issues and problems faced by soldiers and ex-servicemen. Highly placed sources in the Defence Ministry argued that its track record over the past 10 years had been one of positive accommodation on issues such as voting rights of soldiers, housing and pension rules. The sources also pointed out that specific welfare measures had been devised across the Services on the basis of general and local factors to address the issue of stress-related deaths.

According to these sources, the Ministry had never opposed the idea of allowing soldiers the right to franchise by registering themselves at their places of posting. In fact, they added, the records of the Ministry showed that it had been actively pursuing the issue with the Election Commission and other related departments of the government even before the judiciary took a position on it. As recently as the first week of February, the Ministry had put a nodal officer of the rank of Additional Secretary in charge of further proceedings. “By no stretch of imagination can these be termed insincere or perfunctory,” the sources claimed.

The Ministry had made a concrete formulation of the term “residing with family” to include group residency in a unit or station in a common accommodation for the purpose of registration as a general voter at a place of posting. Again, it was the Ministry that suggested a downward revision of the Election Commission’s stipulation requiring the minimum period of posting from three years to two years in order to be eligible to register as a voter. All these were part of the procedures on this issue and highlighted the Ministry’s commitment to ensure armed forces personnel’s right to vote, the sources said.

The Ministry and the different Services together had taken up the housing concerns of armed forces personnel with increased priority over the last 10 years, pointed out the sources. “A comprehensive plan, conceived in four phases, is being implemented since 2004. In the past 10 years, at the end of phase I and partial completion of phase II, approximately 57,900 dwelling units, at a cost of Rs.8,817 crore, were completed and handed over. Though there have been delays, it is undoubtedly a housing project on an unprecedented scale. By the time phase III and IV are completed, the personnel would have as many 1,98,881 new dwelling units. The last two phases are expected to be completed by 2018.”

The sources contended that an objective perusal of the Ministry’s records would highlight the consistent efforts undertaken to address the charges regarding discrimination in pension rules for ex-servicemen. “Of course, there are some procedural and administrative tangles in dealing with some of the problems, but here too the approach of the Ministry has been one of positive accommodation.”

“There are several concrete programmes in place at different levels of the Ministry and in the different Services to address the shortage of officers and these have been ongoing for more than 10 years. Many of these programmes have shown positive results while several others need to be made more effective. The Ministry is constantly striving to fine-tune and improve the efficacy of these programmes,” the sources said.

“Eliminating stress-related deaths such as suicide and fratricides is a priority of the department. Institutions such as the Defence Institute of Psychological Research (DIPR) are constantly addressing the different dimensions of the phenomenon and coming up with corrective measures. The suggestions of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, too, have been imbibed by the Ministry to evolve innovative measures. As a result of all these, a number of welfare schemes, such as the Stress Amelioration Action Plan, have been devised and are being implemented in different Services as per existing needs. All these have been operational for many years.”

The sources argued that an objective analysis of the figures on this count would show that these measures had helped bring down stress-related deaths. This drop had been significant since 2008, said the sources.

Venkitesh Ramakrishnan