Nirmala Sitharaman Approves Setting Military Personnel’s Disability-War Injury Pension To Minimum Rs 18,000 A Month

The Ministry of Defense has announced via a tweet that Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has approved the decision to set disability or war injury pension for armed forces personnel at a minimum of Rs 18,000 per month, reports The New Indian Express.

"With approval from Smt @nsitharaman, it has been decided that the disability/war injury pension, special family pension and liberalized family pension shall be minimum Rs 18,000 per month for Defense Forces pensioners/family pensioners, with effect from 1/1/2016," read the tweet.

The whole issue stems from a letter which was issued by the ministry previously to implement a slab-based system for calculating disability pensions as per the recommendation of the seventh Pay Commission, a move which was widely criticized by the opposition as well as the military establishment.

The matter was then sent to the Anomaly Committee for its inputs. The decision was then put on hold with the ministry declaring in July that military personnel would keep getting disability pensions as per a percentage system, till a report on the issue was released by the Anomaly Committee.