THIS year, the government has announced a 10 per cent increase in the pension, which is too small an amount to beat the ever-rising cost of living. It is also very insignificant amount keeping in view the prices of essential day-to-day items. The government is worried about the impact on the national exchequer, disregarding the fact that the pensioners of today have given their youth to this country.

The issue of the pension of retired officers of the armed forces has been raised repeatedly, but without any positive response from successive governments. Those who retired in the 1980s and the 1990s are the most affected as they find it difficult to meet their basic needs due to very meagre pension and high cost of living.

The pension of a lieutenant colonel having retired in the ’90s was around Rs3,500 compared to these days when it has crossed the Rs100,000 mark. It was earlier proposed that pension rules may be amended and pension be given on the basis of ‘one rank one pension’, but it was not approved.

Armed forces pensioners, most of them now having become senior citizens, expect better treatment as given by the West in the shape of concessions in air and rail transport etc. They also get house and subsistence allowance. We, in Pakistan, expect some reasonable increase in pension to match with the increase given to other armed forces officers and their counterparts.

Lt-Col (retd) Mukhtar Ahmed Butt

Karachi

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2021