Alleging that leaders from various political parties are occupying the lands belonging to retired ex-servicemen, Andhra Pradesh Confederation of Ex-servicemen Organisations (APCESMO) has said that the land owners have been doing the rounds of courts for justice.

At a meeting here on Sunday, D. Sekanna who assumed the office the president of the confederation said that 13 district welfare bodies had come together for the first time to make their voice heard at the State and national level.

Job quota

Among the major demands of the confederation is strict adherence to the implementation of Government Order providing 2% reservation for ex-servicemen in the government jobs and maintaining a backlog register at all levels.

“The number of ex-servicemen is increasing year by year, the quantum of reservation should also be enhanced to 4%,” Mr. Sekanna pointed out.

Alleging that many cases pertaining to ‘fake beneficairies’ given jobs under the ex-servicemen quota are pending in the courts at many places, he said that the onus of proving the ‘status of ex-Servicemen’ was falling on the genuine applicants to get their due.

He demanded that a mechanism be evolved so that ex-servicemen were not made to run from pillar to post to get their dues.

Referring to the children of ex-servicemen getting reservations in educational institutions, the confederation members said that it was getting tougher with the poor implementation of the norm of 2% in all institutions and 1% in medicine seats.

Issuing of ‘Children of Army Persons’ certificates was also getting delayed, leading to a number of genuine beneficairies losing their chance, Mr. Sekanna added.

Housing loan

The confederation also demanded that a corpus be allocated to lend money at lower interest rates for housing. A majority of banks were not taking the Army pension as an income to be eligible for housing loans, hence this special provision was essential, its members ponited out.

They also sought at least 5 cents of land be sanctioned by the government at reasonable price to ex-servicemen to construct houses. The 5-acre land given by government to several retired army personnel in Hindupur had been caught in disputes for the past 20 years and 116 beneficiaries were doing rounds of the courts.

After division of the State, a new Army Recruiting Office (earlier called BRO) was essential in Rayalaseema region, the APCESMO said. At present, there is only one in Guntur that handles affairs of the entire State.