At the end of April 2022, about 58,275 retired military personnel, ranging from retired army commanders to retired jawans, didn’t get their monthly defence pension credited. It really became worse as it was a weekend and the helpline of the principal controller of defence accounts, Allahabad, was switched off, which works Monday to Friday only. On the 4th of May, the same principal controller of defence accounts sent out a press release stating the reason for this inconvenience was that the affected pensioners hadn’t submitted their life certificates. The press release also said that the withheld pension will be credited to the corresponding accounts but warned that pensioners should submit the life certificate by May 25th.
The new pension disbursal system
Defence pensioners were recently migrated into a new pension administration system—SPARSH (System for Pension Administration (Raksha))—a new untested pension disbursal system created by PCDA (Principal Controller of Defence Accounts), despite the fact that any system should only be implemented after it has been tested and proven efficient on a small set of target demography.
‘SPARSH’ is a system created by the defence accounts department (DAD) and was presented to the ministry of defence as a system that goes in line with the central government’s digital India mission. It claims that it can save the Indian government about Rs 250 crores annually by saving the expenses that are caused by disbursing through public and private sector banks as it was until recently.
However, implementing SPARSH budget of 160 crores is estimated to maintain its service centers and other facilities, which obviously causes a heavy burden on the salary and pensions and other financial privileges allowed to the defence accounts department staff. Moreover, most of the pensioners are settled in rural areas with very little internet connectivity. It is not logical to expect that these military personnel would go through an elaborate registration process that is completely foreign to them and use the new system without needing any training.
It is apparent that this new policy implementation was done without the consent of defence service headquarters. This is not an isolated incident of clashes between the government and the armed forces. The government departments that were created to increase the efficiency of services provided to the army officials of the nation are always seemingly generating new problems.
Some of the recent clashes between the government and the armed forces
An issue that comes to our mind when pondering the clashes between the armed forces and the government is Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s declaration that all military cantonment roads would be made open to the public on May 20th, 2018. This declaration, which can cause a major security threat of terror attack to military families in the cantonment, was taken without the presence of any military personnel in the meeting before taking the decision.
In the same Defence Minister’s rule, another decision was imposed on the disability pension given to military personnel with medical disabilities caused by the extreme conditions of military service. The declaration of the decision was said to be because of the increased number of applicants and the exploitation of the benefits even for lifestyle diseases.
Ordeals surrounding the ‘one rank, one pension’ policy and ‘tour of duty’ proposal are also some of the events that can be taken into consideration while discussing the clash between the government and the armed forces.
The legal dispute between the armed forces and the judicial system is an essential part of the Indian government. In the case of granting ‘permanent commission’ to female officers of ‘short service commission’ is also to be mentioned. It was aimed at bringing about equality in the defence sector, which did not receive a favourable reception and was heavily resisted by the armed forces.
The security of the nation is solely dependent upon the armed forces of the country. Even in internal conflicts, the armed forces are expected to have a say, but they are the people who are treated by the government without any consideration of the same. The government uses the same method of leaving people in shock by sudden declarations as in the demonetization policy, with the armed forces also in recent events. Progressive modifications in the defence systems are an undeniable need, but deciding the best for the armed forces should not be done without their knowledge and presence. Including servicemen in concerning departments is the need of the hour.
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