 Welcome to NewsClick. There have been in the last several weeks a number of issues where the services which is the army, Indian Air Force and naval personnel feel that they have been short charged by the Ministry of Defense over a number of issues that affect them. We have with us general, Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch who retired as commander of the Special Forces and who has seen of course action in both North East as well in Jammu Kashmir in his long career. He is a military analyst and a prolific writer too. Welcome to NewsClick, sir. I would like to start by asking you the first question on April 5th that a letter was sent by Comptroller General of Defense Account to the ex-servicemen's welfare unit of the Ministry of Defense pointing out and I quote from the para 3A of the letter quote whether there is any logic to initiate process of one rank, one pension, revision, stroke equalization. Once the pension of past and current pensioners have been equated on January 1, 2016 by the Seventh Pay Commission. So my question to you sir is why did A, the Comptroller General of Defense Accounts feel compelled to send this letter? Second, what is your take? Because revision and equalization in a layman's understanding are two different things. So why is the CGDA conflating revision with equalization, sir? I think it is a mischief to send the soldiers on a wild goose chase again. The revision or the equalization was to be done on 1st July this year, 2019. And Sanjeev Mittal who is the CGDA surely is not a retard because although the initiation of the revision was done on 1st January, 2016, the implementation was with effect 1st of July, 2014. And in fact the Gazette notification clearly says that the actualization will be done after 5 years which falls on 1st of July. So this is actually a mischief. Now either has the MOD asked them. Is the revision and equalization one and the same thing? See, equalization is like the Arup that a soldier of the same service of the same rank, same length of service gets the same pension. This has been the long-standing demand. Equalization actually for one rank, one pension means every year. But the government said alright, we will do it after 5 years. So call it revision, call it equalization. It was supposed to be done from 1st of July which is today. So 7th Pay Commission was not looking into equalization. They were looking into revision of current salary structures. Absolutely. They were not looking into Arup. Now what CGDA has done is that the initiation of the one rank, one pension with effect 1st of July, 2014 was started on 1st January because they were waiting for the 7th Pay Commission. But the equalization was to be done after 5 years which is today. Okay. It is due now in 2019. Yes. Okay. So why do you think, I mean obviously there is such a big difference between revision and equalization and it is not the two one and the same thing. Why would the controller general of defense accounts go out of its way to conflate the two things? See as I said it is a mischief and if the MOD had not asked him to equalize 1st of July then his, there is no logic of his initiating a node today. And if you look at the language, the language is actually a slap on the face of MOD. That why are you asking for equalization? So it is actually a mischief between the bureaucrats and the CGDA. Okay. So you believe that it is the bureaucracy which is responsible for it. Let us take another issue which has also been causing a lot of heartburn to the services and the veterans which has to do with, there have been several anomalies in 7th Pay Commission. So even if we for the time being forget the record of the history of earlier Pay Commission, the point is even 7th Pay Commission which we are currently, services are getting benefits as per that. What were the anomalies or at least some of the major ones which still remain unsolved or they have been solved? How many have been sorted out and how many remain to be solved? I would say none have been sorted out. In fact the anomalies are starting with the 3rd Central Pay Commission and hardly any sorting out has been done. It is all bunkum. Even in the case of OROP, they had a one man justice committee commission which submitted his report in 2016 and they are sitting on it and now they say we want another committee to look into those recommendations. Now as far as 7th Pay Commission is, the major thing which has happened... Justice Reddy committee was appointed after the 7th Pay Commission was announced. No, before. The one rank one pension, they submitted their report in 2016. Okay. They had been I think appointed a year earlier. I do not know what exactly was the time when they were appointed. Right? In 2000, October 16th, they submitted their report. 20 years after that, 20 months after that in July last year, Defense Minister Sitaraman says that we are still studying it and then she told the parliament that we appointed another committee to look into these recommendations. Okay. In January this year, the Supreme Court of India has given a notice to the centre that why have you not resolved the anomalies of the OROP? Then on 4th of March, Mrs. Sitaraman again pre-election rally, see the government is going to resolve these soon. Nothing has happened. Okay. So they are actually taking the veterans on a wild goose chase and I would like to say that OROP is not a demand. It is an authorization. It's a commitment. It's a commitment, which was there from 1947 to 1973. In any case, pension is a deferred wage. Absolutely. So people who have served a number of years, they are entitled to it. No, there is no... In the 7th Pay Commission, what has... I'll just give you one example. That was civilian officer or say an IPS officer or a central armed police officer posted in Leh. This is 10,000 feet only. Or in Guwahati. He's getting allowance of 75,000 rupees a month. So the paying allowance has become much higher than the military. What about the services? I mean, when you say that they are getting... Services only get a normal high altitude allowance. Which is how much? I don't know exactly. But this is less than... Much less. Much, much less. Okay, okay. Much, much less. Okay. What happened to the disability pensions which were being contested by the Ministry of Defense in so many instances? The government came out. In fact, Minister of Defense then, Nirmala Sitaraman, is on record again pointing out that they'll be taking a stand on that. In fact, they plan to intend to not file cases against veterans who are entitled to disability pensions. But in between, there was one sentence on case-to-case basis. Okay. Right? In 2017, there was an RTI to the Ministry of Defense. And they came out that the government has spent 47 crores fighting legal cases against the pension of widows and disabled. Right? 47 crores. Yes, it's on record. Yeah. And they were employing a battery of lawyers, paying them 2 lakhs rupees per month from the defense budget to fight these cases. And not a single case has been won by the Ministry of Defense. That is the status. So now again, this business have come up about, you know, the income tax exemption to be given to disabled or not disabled. But the question is, a disabled is, if it happens during military service, it does not have to be, you know, in operations. It was happened in military operations, in military service. Then he's a... Whether in field or in peace zone. Yes. But there's this letter by the ex-DGFMS of 16 December 2014, chap called Lieutenant General B.K. Chopra, written to the Defense Secretary. And I don't know whether he wrote it or he was asked to write it. Where he say that some of the Lieutenant General's and Major General's are equivalent. Or, you know, feigning at the time of retirement that there is a disability and they are pressuring people to, you know, not give them to declare them as disabled so that they get disability pension. The question is, first you can't generalize everybody into the same category. If a few people have defaulted, cash them, reopen their cases. You see, in this letter, General Chopra writes to the Defense Secretary, I would like to seek your views how to curb this menace. But damn it, you are the medical authority and you are directly under the Ministry of Defense. You say, alright, these five cases, I like them. Firstly, disability to be stopped and cases to be reopened. Why did they, towards the end, declare themselves disabled? Not only that, if you are being pressurized within your own service, why can't you have, say, firstly, you say in the last four years of your service, any disability, anybody asking for disability, there will be a tri-service board. But in many cases, is it not the Army Headquarters which has to approve it? And once the Army Headquarters has approved it, where is the question of anybody, why should anybody challenge what the Army Headquarters has approved? I don't know. That's the type of propaganda which is being done. Maybe there are some cases, if there are some cases, you see, like, say in the Army, I got a weapon, I go berserkers, shoot some people. Will you withdraw the weapons from everybody? I mean, that is stupid. There are people like Jail Pankaj Joshi. There are people like Jail Ubroi, Jail Cardozo, who have lost limbs in operations. Now, but they continue to serve. Now, you can't say, okay, their income tax will not be excused. Whole lot of countries are giving it and how much is the money? So, this is being ridiculous and it is being done at a time when the government is changing. You see all these cases, the one about the ORAP also, CGDA letter, government changes, Defense Minister changes. Okay. We'll come to that. There is something else now which is also bothersome. I mean, disability pension, there was a recent report that Government of India plans to do away with the third category of disability pensioners. Those who incurred disability when they are not in the field. Okay. And you referred to that. Have they withdrawn that order? Not to my knowledge. They have not. Not to my knowledge. You see, the point is, what do you call operations? War. Even Cargill operation was not declared as war. There are people who are, say, in content agency, counter-terrorist operations are losing limbs. In one of the operations, my buddy lost both his eyes. That's not war. So, you're going to take away his disability pension? So, if there is no gadget notification declaring the state of war, service people can be denied. Now they were getting. It's only now these people are trying to say, okay, if it is an operation, then we will give you, otherwise we will not give you. I mean, this would be ridiculous. Okay. What is action? Action is happening everywhere. Not only that, if you are in service, then? But tell me if, I mean, these are irritants which can be dealt with and resolved. Of course. Yet, if they remain and they are, even after a commitment is made, how do you read it? I mean, because at one, on the one hand, Government of India is now committed to, as they say, shedding a lot of flab in the armed forces, especially the Indian Army. And attracting more young blood into the force and make it more attractive for them to come, for short commission, for short duration service. Now, if these irritants remain, how do you make the force more attractive for people to join even for shots? That's exactly the point. And in fact, a previous chief, like John Wade Mulligan, said there's no more attractive option at all for the youth. Today, the things are going, the way things are going, I would like to advise the youth, don't join the military. Join the Central Armed Police forces. How do you react to this balloon that was floated recently about the move to instructing the Army headquarters to force the commanders of Uri Nagrotha and Sonjuvan camp to resign, because they failed to prevent the attack on the cantonments. Now, this has caused a lot of, I mean, although Army headquarters has not officially come out, but enough has been said by others to make it very clear that the Army is very unhappy with this. And their argument is that the argument is twofold. One is that if they've already taken an action against, I mean, how can you, I mean, the double Jopadi emergence that after taking all the steps that you was required for the Army headquarters to take, now you're asking the same force to say no, you dismiss them or virtually force them to resign. How, what message does it send to the service people? I'll like to make a decision to the previous question first. You know, in the business of pension, 45% of the pension budget or defense is being consumed by 22% of the civilian defense employees. You have 6.5 lakh civilian defense employees against 14.5 lakhs Army. Every civilian defense employee is five times more expensive than the uniformed counterpart with a serving or retired. How do you justify that? Their strength is not being cut down. Now, coming to this business of, you know, that you send these people from... And sir, in the Uri's case, the commander had taken over just reportedly two days prior to the attack. That is not the only point. You see, it's a question of fortifications and defense of the military bases, installations, which is sorely lacking. Like at the time when Uri was attacked, it had only one cattle fence for security parameter. It didn't even have a HSTI, right? Take the case of, say... No, the Sunjuman camp. I've put photographs on the social media, you know, there are three-story buildings illegal next to the camp overseeing the entire garage. They've been permitted by the government. Now, you want... there are buildings which are blocking the observation of the observation towers. Now, is the army supposed to fight decades after decades to evict these jokers out? In certain cases, the government has approved, not in JNK, in certain cases, the area which is not supposed to have any construction, they reduced it from 100 meters to 10 meters, officially. Why have it at all? And this, and then you have ordnance lepers and being blown up. What is the joke? There are politicians who've got these buildings, especially one in Nagrota, which was also attacked. What is the accountability? Now, you say that, all right, we've given money to the vice chiefs, we've given the money. You know, they can do... But then, one thing... Where is the money on ground? No, there was a project after the Uri, all these incidents. There was a project which was taken up for walling, for putting CCTV, for having central monitoring, wiring, etc., etc. But no funds were made available for that. Funds were made available partially after the Sujanpur, the Sujman camp was attacked. Till that time, they were sitting quiet. Otherwise, that Philips Compose Committee was a very, very comprehensive report. And who submitted their report in 2016. And in fact, in 2017, all the services had done their own appreciation. The requirement was something like 2,000 crore plus. But what has been given is some 14-point something, which again is released. But then, you have a problem of funds on ground and you have a problem of the procurement process, which is again through the financial advisors and the... which is controlled by the Ministry of Defence, so things don't move. My final question to you for today, sir, is that there are... I mean, this might come as a surprise to... Incidentally, my input is this was no instruction by the government to the Army. This is a lie which has been put through again by the bureaucrats. As far as I know, there's no communication from the MOD that please send these commanders home. Who's in charge? We'll come to that. My last question is that there are many items that the Army purchases from emanation, clothing, tentage, etc. As well as vehicles that the services require, the military requires. On which GST is put, so for tentage and clothing and emanation, it's 18% for Army vehicles and many other items, it's 28%. Which is one... I mean, Ministry of Finance allocates certain money and part of the money goes back to them through this GST. How does it... I mean, here it's not just a question of bureaucracy. It's a question of government and its political will. So while we focus on the bureaucracy, there is also a larger issue because obviously if the Ministry of Finance is imposing GST, obviously it's a government's decision to do so. It cannot be done otherwise. How do you feel about that as... See, as it is, the defense forces are actually passed for modernization. They're not enough funds and the Standing Committee report on defense, the report when Jal Khanduri was the chief and after that he was sacked, was that these many projects we have to shut down because there's no money. On top of that, you want to give GST and that GST you want to give when each and every item, without exception, is about twice or thrice more expensive from the DRDO and the OFB coming to the armed forces compared to the prices in the open market. On top of that, you want to put GST. I mean, this is a government decision. If you want a military in that state, it's up to you what you want to do. Do you expect... this is my final question and we'll discuss it once the budget comes out. Do you expect any major revision in budgetal equation for defense this time? If it will happen, it will be very marginal. Otherwise, the same government, the stance is the same. The thinking is there's going to be no war. Despite the fact that you say if the NSA of the Secretary of State of U.S. is coming, then they say the government has prepared a budget of 10 billion arms to be purchased and whatnot. So the thinking is there's going to be no war. So they say all right, the military, the army specifically has to be in a corner. It is a necessary evil. Even now, the focus is on the sea, which should be. Even the defense minister has said now that we have to look at the sea. Of course, we have to look at sea. What about your borders? Were there going to be encroachments? In Arunachal, your troops are still sitting behind because there are no roads. There's no infrastructure. That's it. Thank you for your time, General. And we'll of course be calling on you again for your opinion and your perspective on a number of issues which have to do with the defense and the military. But thank you for today. Thank you for watching NewsClick. If you have any suggestion, any comments, do give us your feedback. Thank you for today.