Stating this here today, chairman of the North Zone Ex-Defence Personnel Sangathan, Air Marshal Randhir Singh (retd) said that while orders for bringing pre-1986 pensioners at par with the post-1986 were issued in May 1998, the notification for bringing all pre-1996 pensioners with post-1996 retirees is awaited. In December last year, the Cabinet had overruled orders passed earlier by the I.K. Gujral government and directed the implementation of the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission in toto.

Though the notification for implementing the complete recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission, as directed by the Union Cabinet, had been drafted by the Ministry of Defence in mid-January this year, it could not be issued due to some objections in certain quarters at the service headquarters.

The major issues involved, Air Marshal Randhir Singh said, are the principle of calculation of defence pension based on the minimum payscale instead of the maximum pay scale as was the practise earlier and the clause of completing 33 years of service for full pension.

He said that that rank-wise payscales were introduced to replace the earlier integrated payscales from Lieute-nant to Brigadier by the Fifth Pay Commission.

The formula devised to calculate pension was based on the minimum pay, which led to defence personnel loosing a major portion of their pension.

Also, the civilian clause of completing 33 years of service for eligibility for full pension was applied to the defence forces, which meant that those who had completed full tenure or standard service as per service conditions ended up with reduced pension.