Lt Gen Gyan Bhushan (retd)

Former South Western Army Commander

Defence pension is once again in the media glare. A false narrative is being created that it has grown astronomically in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as compared to other ministries. This narrative, different from the ground reality, is causing great concern to serving soldiers and the veteran fraternity.

Pensionary benefits for the armed forces personnel are far less than other government employees as soldiers retire at the prime of their youth, resulting in shorter spans of service for pension. Their counterparts, in contrast, have much longer lengths of service for pension. This is also attributed to the special privilege of non-functional grade and assured career progression, resulting in much higher pension than soldiers. The fact is that the military receives the lowest per capita pension amongst all government functionaries.

The total number of pensioners was 51.96 lakh as on January 1, 2014, as per the data from the Seventh Pay Commission report — 33.36 lakh civil pensioners and 18.6 lakh defence ones. The real concern is the pension of other government employees and not the armed forces. Civil servants serve up to 60 years and comparatively attain higher positions than most soldiers and more attractive pay package. The narrative about soldiers emptying the coffers needs to be challenged with facts and figures, not hearsay.

Another revealing fact is that more than a third of the defence pension allocated in the MoD caters to over half a million civil defence employees. The remaining two-thirds is for the military.

This raises another pertinent issue of a compelling need to have half a million other government employees in the MoD to maintain 1.3 million military personnel. The subject of teeth to tail ratio only focuses on the reduction of uniformed personnel and there is never a discussion on cutting down this flab in the MoD. Whenever this issue is raised, it is overlooked because of obstacles and protests by the unions concerned.

The government is faced with an increased pension burden for the retired defence forces personnel who are still in their prime of youth and have always exhibited a will to sacrifice their youth for the motherland and have no platform to voice their concerns. Rehabilitating these trained young personnel who are too young to take total retirement from all work is the responsibility of the government to keep them motivated. Keeping the armed forces young is essential for national security and defence services have an important role to play in this but it is not the sole responsibility of the armed forces to maintain a young profile as also to keep the pension budget under control.

It is important to remember that recommendations of the parliamentary committee and various pay commissions regarding the absorption of armed forces personnel after their military service into various government organisations where their unique skills, training and discipline can be optimally used, have been mostly ignored by successive governments, mainly on account of bureaucratic hurdles and sustained obstructions in the ministries.

The straight response for the reduction in pension expenditure is to implement recommendations of the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Pay Commissions, AV Singh Committee and Koshyari Committee for the lateral shift of young, trained and disciplined manpower proceeding on pension from our defence forces to other organisations and expand the concept of short service commission by making it more attractive, another viable proposal pending with the government for a long time.

Outside the borders of India, armed forces personnel, after their military engagement, are absorbed in civil government organisations, including the police in many countries. These include China and other advanced economies like South Korea, Singapore, Israel, Switzerland, and the United States. The Sixth Pay Commission has also recommended that there is adequate potential to allow lateral shift of nearly all defence forces personnel to the CAPFs and various cadres of defence civilians.

There is need to find ingenious and practical ways of addressing the issue of defence pension at a national level rather than aiming for resolution at departmental levels by the defence services within their own means.

Since increasing defence pension is a cause of concern, armed forces have been contemplating ways to optimise engagement of its personnel by increasing the number of years they serve. Measures like the feasibility of increasing the retirement age of soldiers are under consideration. A change in the age or manpower profile, though definitely possible to some extent, will have a direct impact on national security. Therefore, there is need for a resolution of this challenge at the national level for a long-term solution rather than only the three services addressing this challenge at the departmental level.

Over a period of time, the Defence Budget has gradually reduced in terms of percentage of GDP despite facing two hostile nuclear neighbours with whom we have unsettled border issues and they are always endeavouring to create new challenges for us. It has sunk to just about two per cent which is lowest amongst contemporary countries. This low allocation results in an unrealistic allocation for capital expenses. This has resulted in resorting to emergency purchases in times of crisis for our essential weapon and equipment whenever there has been a major terror attack or border clash. Keeping in view the threat perception and security challenges, recommended expenditure of a minimum three per cent of GDP on defence is essential and with that allocation, apparently things fall in place.

The figures about budgetary allocation for pension which are in the public domain indicate that the growth for both defence personnel and other government employees have shown an almost similar growth in the last decade. Therefore, the need for concern should not be restricted to military pension.

Pension for the military will reduce considerably if recommendations of the pay commissions and other committees about the lateral shift of soldiers retiring in their prime youth to other organisations and making the short service commission more attractive are implemented.

Tribune News Service

Mohali, December 20

A 21-year-old girl from Punjab passed out as a Flying Officer from the Indian Air Force Academy, Hyderabad. Tabassum Khan, a resident of Bathinda, also topped the transport flying branch (men and women) at the academy in the order of merit.

Educated from Mai Bhago Armed Forces Preparatory Institute in Sector 66, Mohali, Tabassum today visited her institute directly after arriving at the international airport here. Her parents, Abub Shah and Shamshad, reached the airport from Bathinda to receive their daughter.

Major General IP Singh (retd), the director of the institute, along with other staff members, welcomed Tabassum and her parents and celebrated her achievement by cutting a cake. Tabassum later met hostel students and shared her happiness with them.

Talking to The Tribune, Tabassum said after completing her three-year course from Mohali, she was selected in the Hyderabad academy in 2019 as Lady Cadet. After completing her training of 18 months there, she became a Flying Officer.

“I am all set to serve the nation and look forward to my upcoming training sessions and opportunities,” said Tabassum.

Tabassum’s father, Abub Shah, said: “This is a proud moment for our family. Girls in our country are hardworking than boys.”

Major General IP Singh (retd) said: “We are proud of Tabassum. She is an inspiration for other lady cadets. I am sure we will have many more similar results. I wish Tabassum many more successes in her flying career as an officer of the Indian Air Force.”

New Delhi, December 20

The 51st director general-level border coordination conference between the Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) will be held in Guwahati from December 22 to 26, an official statement said.

This is for the first time in four decades that the biannual conference will be held outside Delhi.

The BSF delegation will be led by Director General Rakesh Asthana while the BGB delegation will headed by the force’s chief Major General Md Shafeenul Islam.

The conference will focus on addressing and streamlining mechanisms on how to jointly curb various trans-border crimes and timely sharing of information between both the border guarding forces, an official statement said.

There will be deliberations on developmental and infrastructure works, joint efforts for effective implementation of Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP) and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs), the statement said.

The aim of the talks is to discuss border related issues, and to enable better coordination between both the forces, it said.

The last BSF–BGB conference was held from September 16 to 19 in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

The joint India-Bangladesh guidelines for border authorities – 1975 envisage that there should be frequent contact between the border authorities of the two concerned countries to discuss matters of immediate administrative concern.

An Indian delegation under the leadership of Ashwani Kumar, the then Director General of BSF and the Bangladesh delegation under the leadership of Major General Quazi Golam Dastgir, former Director General BDR (now BGB) met in Kolkata on December 2, 1975 for the first time to discuss mutual border problems.

Since then, the meetings between DG BSF and DG BGB were held annually alternatively in India and Bangladesh till 1993.

During discussions between the home secretaries of India and Bangladesh that were held at Dhaka from Oct 7 to 9 in 1993, it was agreed that the director general-level meetings between the BSF and BGB, were to be a biannual event.

In the agreed summary of discussions during the said meeting, it was emphasised that problems in the areas of mutual interests and concerns could be progressively resolved through close contacts and continuing meaningful dialogue at various levels.

Accordingly, DG BSF and DG BGB have been holding border coordination meetings twice a year alternatively at Delhi and Dhaka and joint record of discussions of these meetings are forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs after each such meeting, the statement said.

Assam’s capital city is the base for BSF’s Guwahati frontier headquarters whose troops guard 495 km of the front, out of the total 4,096 km long India-Bangladesh international border, that runs along this state and some parts of West Bengal.

A special BSF water wing that keeps vigil along the riverine border areas including Dhubri in Assam are under the command of this frontier of the border force.

The current relations between the two countries and the forces are very good and both the sides will take them forward during these talks, officials said.

While the Indian side is expected to take up the issue of joint border security management, fencing of unfenced areas and undertaking effective steps to curb cross-border crimes, the Bangaldeshi border force is expected to take up issues related to killing of its people along the front.

BSF DG Asthana, during the last meeting in Dhaka, has said that the killing of criminals along the front will be “made to reduce significantly” even as he reiterated that his troops only fire when their lives are endangered by cross-border miscreants.

He had said that death or apprehension of criminals on the border are “irrespective of nationalities”.

“BSF personnel fire with non-lethal weapon only in self-defence when they are surrounded by large number of miscreants armed with dah (cleaver-shaped knife), sticks etc, and their lives are endangered,” he was quoted as saying by a BSF spokesperson.

The two sides are also expected to firm up new standard operating procedures (SOPs) in view of crossing of “significant” number of mentally disabled Indian nationals to Bangladesh, a plan mooted by the BSF chief.

The two forces, after the Dhaka talks in September, had also decided to “share real-time information” with each other expeditiously through formal or informal channels regarding human trafficking,  smuggling of narcotics, fake Indian currency notes, cattle, arms, ammunition, explosives, information related to anti-social elements, activities of IIGs (Indian Insurgent groups) and breach or damage of the border fence. — PTI

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 20

As part of the golden jubilee celebrations of the 1971 Indo-Pak war, the Swarnim Vijay Mashaal or the victory flame traversing the four corners of the country, will pass through 11 key battle locations in the Western Theatre, from where soil will be collected and used for tree plantation function at the National War Memorial at New Delhi on the war’s 50th anniversary next year.

The victory flame that was launched from New Delhi this month is scheduled to arrive at Headquarters Western Command, Chandimandir, on January 14, 2021, where several commemorative events will be held, Col RS Mangat said while presenting a curtain raiser at the Military Literature Festival here today.

In the northern region, the flame will pass through the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir, touching 35 locations enroute. Events such as felicitating gallantry awardees and war widows of 1971, equipment and band display, mini-marathons, motivational lectures and photo exhibitions will be held at these locations.

Three other victory flames are passing through other regions of the country, which will finally converge and merge at the National War Memorial in Delhi where the final mega commemorative events would be held on 15-16 December next year. Film festivals and a tri-service mountaineering expedition are other events being organised in the coming year.