It was on September 15, 2013 that Narendra Modi addressed an ex-servicemen rally at Rewari, Haryana as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, where he vociferously supported the demand of ‘One Rank One Pension’ (OROP) for all soldiers. Mr. Modi was then campaigning in poetry, and nine years later, as the Agnipath scheme for recruitment of short-term contracted soldiers was announced, he has been forced to contend with the reality of governing in prose. However hard the Government may try to obfuscate, the driving factor for this U-turn — from ‘One Rank One Pension’ to ‘No Rank No Pension’ — is economics.
Financial motivations
The OROP demand became tricky to fulfil once Mr. Modi became Prime Minister, but it was officially instituted in November 2015 for more than 25 lakh defence pensioners. It came with an immediate annual financial implication of ₹7,123.38 crore and the actual arrears from July 1, 2014 to December 31, 2015 were ₹10,392.35 crore. The financial burden increased cumulatively over time and has substantially increased the budgetary expenditure on defence pensions. In the current financial year, ₹1,19,696 crore has been budgeted for pensions, along with another ₹1,63,453 crore for salaries — that is 54% of the allocation for the Defence Ministry.
