Army Chief General V.K. Singh on Saturday said that Defence Minister A.K. Antony has promised to remove the anomalies in the pension of ex-servicemen.
Addressing a gathering of ex-servicemen on Delhi's outskirts, General Singh said that the government is sensitive to the needs of the retired soldiers and efforts are being made to remove anomalies in their pension as identified by the sixth pay commission.
"After the sixth pay commission, 46 anomalies were discovered which were causing losses to the ex-servicemen. These have been put before government and we are committed to remove them to ensure that every one gets an equitable pension," he said.
Stating that wrong message was spread on this issue that removing these anomalies will cost too much money, he said "only Rs 1300 crore is required to ensure equitable pension to retired soldiers". "When we made the calculation, we found out that if these 46 anomalies were removed, it will be an expenditure of Rs 3000 crore only and out of this Rs 2600 crore is for JCOs, NCOs and Jawans. Only Rs 400 crore would be spent to address the problems of officer," General Singh said.
Hoping that government will help in resolving the issue after these figures are presented to it, he said, "The Defence Minister has assured us that after completion of budget session, he will try to remove all these problems one by one."