Dear Sir / Madam Sub:- (i)- Denying benefit of OROP to premature retirees is dangerous & absurd (ii)- Revision of pension should be linked with revision of pay scales (iii)- Financial burden of OROP is not huge at-all -- On Saturday Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar announced in New Delhi that the Government of India (GOI) has decided to implement OROP but it is neither here nor there as given below :- (1)- The estimated cost of Rs. 8,000 to 10,000 crore at present to the exchequer and ONE-TIME arrears of ten to twelve thousand crores is not huge at-all because:- (i)- If compared to populist measures (where hundreds of thousands of crores of money is mostly squandered by GOI) this amount for OROP is nothing. (ii)- Keeping Military is not a welfare act of GOI but sovereign act of State. Moreover maintaining battle fit military has top most place in the hierarchy of sovereign acts of State. Hence GOI is under legal obligation to first meet the financial requirement of maintaining combat fit military before GOI even think of spending money on either other sovereign acts or on any welfare act of Indian State. (2)- It is also absurd when GOI says that in future, the pension would be re-fixed every 5 years or when agitating military veterans allegedly demand that it should be fixed in 2 years. Logically pension should be revised whenever pay scales are revised for military personnel. (3)- GOI announced that the personnel who voluntarily retire will not be covered under the OROP scheme. Obviously GOI does not understand the meaning of service by the martial element of the State. What is announced by GOI has dangerous implications where military persons will not take voluntary retirement (due to fear of losing pension) and will keep on serving even if they are not fit (especially if lack of fitness can be hided) to serve or not willing to serve. And this is fundamentally opposed to the spirit with which any member of military service is supposed to serve the country [where they are supposed to kill the people (enemy) and even get killed in the process] and this announcement of GOI (if implemented) is bound to lower the moral of Armed Forces of India. Regards Hem Raj Jain (Author of ‘Betrayal of Americanism’) USA