The central government has disbursed more than Rs 42,700 crore to 20.6 lakh retired defence personnel under the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme, which was notified five years ago, the Defence Ministry said on Friday. Under the OROP scheme, uniform pension is paid to defence personnel who retire in the same rank with the same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement.
On November 7, 2015, the government issued an order notifying the OROP scheme and had stated that it would be effective from July 1, 2014. "The yearly recurring expenditure on account of OROP is about Rs 7,123 crore and for about six years, starting from July 1, 2014, the total recurring expenditure worked out to approximately Rs 42,740 crore," the Defence Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The ministry stated that Rs 10,795 crore has been disbursed to 20.6 lakh defence force pensioners or family pensioners as arrears due to implementation of the OROP. The OROP was implemented to bridge the gap between the pensions of current and past ex-servicemen at periodic intervals. Before OROP, ex-servicemen used to get pensions as per the Pay Commission's recommendations of the time when they had retired.
The armed forces personnel who retired by June 30, 2014, are covered under the OROP scheme, the ministry said. "Ex-servicemen had been agitating for implementation of OROP for nearly 45 years, but the same was not implemented before 2015," the ministry noted on Friday.
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