One Rank One Pension

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Recently, the Supreme Court asked the Centre to show how many persons in the Armed forces have benefitted from ‘One Rank One Pension’ (OROP) policy.

GS II- Government policies and Interventions

OROP means the payment of the same pension to military officers for the same rank for the same length of service, irrespective of the date of retirement.
- Example: consider an officer ‘A’ who had been in service for 15 years from 1980 to 1995. Also, consider another officer ‘B’ of the same rank and been in service for 15 years from 1995 to 2010. As per the OROP concept, both officers – since having the same rank and same length of service – should get the same pension
Before OROP, ex-servicemen used to get pensions as per the Pay Commission’s recommendations of the time when they had retired.
Uttar Pradesh and Punjab have the highest number of OROP beneficiaries.
Armed Forces Personnel who had retired till 30th june 2014 are covered under it.
The implementation of the scheme was based on recommendation of the Koshiyari committee.

The shorter period of service of military officers: The defense personnel is made to retire at the age of 33 to 35 years due to the necessity of maintaining a younger army whereas the officer of civil side retires at the age of 60 years.
It is the moral obligation of the state to look after the welfare of the soldiers who served the nation.
A lowered pay status compared to the civilian counterparts with less period of service affects the morale of forces.
The issues, veterans emphasize, are of justice, equity, honor, and national security.

Financial hurdle as the estimated time cost of implementation is 8000-10000 crore rupees. This will increase on every further revision of salary.
Expenditure on arrears would be around 10000 crore rupees.
Lead to demands from other army personnel like CRPF, CISF etc.
It is also an administrative challenge due to lack of records going back to many decades.

-Source: The Hindu