Strict norms for disability pension proposed
NEW DELHI: Senior military officers should produce a medical report from a Command Hospital to certify their claim of disability pension, a panel of the three services has recommended to the Defence Ministry as part of measures to curb instances of “improper” claims of the pension, Lieutenant General Ashwani Kumar, the outgoing Adjutant General of the Indian Army, has said.
In addition, it has been proposed only a section of the pension that has a disability component is exempted from income tax. “Pension above that limit -depending on what the government decides as the upper limit will be taxable,” General Kumar said.
The proposal had been cleared by Chairman of the Chief of Staff Committee - a tri-service body and sent to the ministry.
It has been recommended that to begin with, the requirement for certificates from the Command Hospital should be introduced for disability pension claims of Major General-rank military officers and above. This condition could gradually be made applicable to other ranks for instance Brigadier and equivalent - at a later date. Under the existing rules, the disability status of soldiers can be certified by any military hospital.
Command Hospitals are better equipped and have more specialized doctors who can take a better call on the level of disability. The services hope that giving the responsibility to Command Hospitals would build a deterrence to soldiers filing improper disability claims.
It has also been recommended that the level or percentage of disability should not be declared in the service records.
“Percentage of disability should be given only when the officer is leaving,” General Kumar said, explaining that a disability could be rectified or reduced over the years.
The panel has also proposed to alter the existing tax free status of disability pension.
Pensions with disability to the armed forces are not taxed under a 1922 order of British Indian Army. But in 2019, soon after being appointed as Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman had withdrawn the tax exemption. The move which had the backing of the service headquarters, in particular the Army Headquarters, had annoyed veterans.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh took an in-principle decision to rescind the order and asked service headquarters to come up with means to reduce “impropriety” in disability pension. The Hindustan Times was the first to report this.
In the Army - the largest of the three forces - on an average 20 per cent of all outgoing officer are certified with various levels of disability.
In the current fiscal, the government has allocated Rs 1.12 lakh crore for defence pensions alone.
Around 11.2% of Indian Army officers, including generals, and 0.8% of troopers receive disability pensions. There are about 2.5 million retired soldiers in India.
A medical downgrade entitles a soldier to better retirement benefits. On average for the same rank, a disability pension can be 20 to 50% more than a normal one, plus tax exemption.