New Delhi: Hitting back at the Modi government over it's announcement on implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme, the Congress on Saturday dubbed the development as 'totally disappointing'.
While addressing a press conference in the national capital, senior Congress leader and former defence minister AK Antony said, "The (Narendra) Modi government has substantially diluted the provisions of the OROP announced by the UPA (Congress-led United Progressive Alliance). Today's (Saturday) announcement about OROP by the defence minister is totally disappointing."
“UPA Government was always sincere for the cause of ex-servicemen,” he said while criticising the Modi govt, as per ANI.
Antony further compared the recent announcement of the NDA government for the ex-servicemen with the previous ruling period of the UPA and said, “In last 10 years of the UPA government, we increased the pension of the ex-servicemen three times.”
“No other government has increased the pension of ex-servicemen on such a large scale,” he added.
Antony also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of politicising the issue, saying Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar used the occasion of announcing OROP to criticise the previous UPA government.
Earlier in the day, the protesting ex-servicemen also said that they were not "fully satisfied" with the OROP scheme announced by the government as all of their demands had not been met.
"Though we welcome the implementation of the OROP by the government, we are not fully satisfied as they have not accepted the six points demanded by the ex-servicemen," Maj. Gen. Satbir Singh (retd), who has been spearheading the campaign for OROP, told the media at Jantar Mantar shortly after Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar announced the scheme would be implemented.
Manohar Parrikar, earlier in the day, announced that the government has decided to implement the much awaited OROP scheme and its benefit would be given to all ex-servicemen, excluding voluntary retirees from July 1, 2014.
"The Government has taken the decision to implement the OROP. Under the OROP scheme the benefit would be given from July 1, 2014. The base year would be 2013," Parrikar said at the press conference.
Here is the full text of his speech:
Government Announces One Rank One Pension Scheme for Ex-Servicemen. Full Text. http://t.co/MTuwhTNpJ6
— Sitanshu Kar (@SpokespersonMoD) September 5, 2015
