What is One Rank, One Pension?

The Supreme Court last month upheld the One Rank, One Pension scheme for armed forces personnel. The court said it did not find any constitutional infirmity in the OROP principle and the government’s notification dated November 7, 2015. 
 
OROP implies a uniform pension for defence personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service, regardless of their date of retirement.

In view of the need of the defence forces to maintain physical fitness, efficiency and effectiveness, personnel retire at an early age compared to other agencies of the government. A sepoy in the army and equivalent rank in navy and air force retire after 17-19 years of service and officers retire before attaining the age of 60 years. 

Before the implementation of OROP, the computation of pension was linked to the pay drawn by the personnel in a particular pay scale at the time of his/her retirement. Pay scales are revised to the higher side generally on the recommendation of Pay Commissions. As such, the personnel retiring after the revision of the pay scales got more pension than those who had already retired. Hence, the gap remained in the pension of the past and present retirees.
OROP bridges the gap between the rates of pension of current and past pensioners at periodic intervals.
 
The scheme was implemented with retrospective effect from July 1st, 2014 with 2013 as the base year. 
The armed forces personnel who retired by June 30, 2014, are covered under the scheme.
The pension of past pensioners was re-fixed on the basis of the pension of retirees of calendar year 2013 and the benefit was effective July 2014. 

The pension was determined on the basis of the average of minimum and maximum pension of personnel retired in 2013 in the same rank and with the same length of service. The scheme envisages revision of pension once every five years.
 
The yearly recurring expenditure on account of OROP is about Rs 7,123 crore. For about six years starting from July 2014, the total expenditure was over Rs 42,740 crore.