Military Not Responsible For Pension Burden

Context: A false narrative that defence pension has grown astronomically in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as compared to other ministries is causing concern to serve soldiers and veteran fraternity.

Problem Areas in Defence Pension

• Shorter spans of service for soldiers: deprive them of the special privilege of non-functional grade and assured career progression, resulting in much lower per capita pension.
  • Soldiers have to retire at the prime of their youth, unlike civil servants that serve up to 60 years.
• More civil pensioners than military ones: As per the data from the Seventh Pay Commission report: there are 33.36 lakh civil pensioners and 18.6 lakh defence ones.
  • More than a third of the defence pension allocated caters to over half a million civil defence employees and remaining two-thirds are for the military.
• Bureaucratic hurdle and sustained obstructions in ministries: has obstructed absorption of retired armed forces personnel into various government organisations.

Way Forward

• Ensure rehabilitation of retried military personnel: into civil government organisations where their unique skills, training and discipline can be optimally used.
  • For e.g. China, South Korea, Singapore, Israel, Switzerland, and the US absorb their retired armed forces into police.
  • Lateral shift of young, trained and disciplined manpower proceeding: on a pension from defence forces to other organisations (like Central Armed Police Force (CAPF)).
  • Expand short service commission by making it more attractive (as recommended by 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th Pay Commissions, AV Singh Committee and Koshyari Committee).
• Increase defence expenditure budget: of a minimum 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP); Gradual decline in the defence budget in terms of GDP (2%) will have a direct impact on national security.

Conclusion: It is necessary to ensure the long-term solution of defence pension issue by addressing it at the national level rather than only at the departmental level by the defence services within their own means.