Veterans from armed forces, who have been protesting at Jantar Mantar for One Rank One Pension (OROP), rejected several key provisions on Saturday and said they will not withdraw their agitation just yet.

Reacting to the government’s announcement, Satbir Singh, the ex-serviceman leading the agitation, said while the army veterans were satisfied with the Government’s intention to implement the concept of OROP, they are rejecting several key provisions of the announced scheme.

He said that the government has accepted one of their demands and rejected six.

Singh said in their meeting with the government, they had demanded a five-member committee to be constituted with representation from army veterans as well serving officials and should give their report within 30 days.

However, the government has decided to constitute a one-member judicial committee which has been given a time period of six months to submit the report.

Another key concern being expressed is considering keeping armed forces personnel who have taken pre-mature retirement out of OROP. The agitating ex-servicemen said they will ask for a clarification on this. “If today the Govt accepts extending OROP to those under pre-mature retirement, then the hunger strike will be withdrawn, but protests will continue,” Singh said, adding that the agitation will be withdrwan only when other conditions are accepted.

Another army veteran Rohit Chaudhry said, "We can extend the issue of equalisation from one year to two years. The Government says there will be administrative hassles in that case. If equalisation happens once every five years, 60-70 per cent of our soldiers will have lower pension than their juniors. How is that fair?"

Another veteran said: " We are waiting for internal discussions amongst ourselves. We need 2-4 hours to decide. We need to see how Government will ensure that a junior officer doesn't get more pension than a senior officer if it is revised every 5 years."

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