Late General Bipin Rawat..It has been reported that the government is on the cusp of exempting the Army, Navy and the Air Force from the operation of the RTI Act on a proposal initiated by Late General Bipin Rawat. The move has caused consternation among veterans organisations across India who have been using RTI for the welfare of the serving/retired personnel and their kin and many have strongly protested against the move.
The veterans’ organisations feel that exempting the military from RTI Act will be a big blow to transparency and also to the millions of veterans, their families, military widows and disabled soldiers since the only way for them to get information about their documents, issues, medical papers and updates on grievances was the RTI Act.
This exemption will also lead to a cloak of secrecy on other matters such as procurements, Military Engineer Services (MES), constructions and defence deals etc. The proposed exemption is being seen as totally not in national interest. Moreover, information related to national security and military operations etc was already exempted under Section 8 of the RTI act, hence the ground for seeking complete exemption from operation of the act is absolutely suspect.
The apex government recognised veteran body, Indian Ex-Services League (IESL), has also written a strong letter to the Prime Minister on this. In the letter, Brig Kartar Singh (retd), President of IESL has said that it was quite disheartening and worrisome to read reports in the media that the government plans to remove the defence services from the ambit of the RTI Act, 2005.
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‘The RTI has remained a powerful tool with the veterans and serving community and their families to obtain information and documents concerning their services and pensioners issues and also to move the authorities into action with respect to routine grievances,” the letter states.
Brig Kartar Singh said that even innocuous documents such as medical board proceedings concerning disabled soldiers and old service records of veterans are only made available through RTI Act. “Many of the 25 lakh military pensioners have not been able to obtain correct pension because of certain known shortcomings that have not been attended to either by the PCDA (Pensions) located at Prayagraj or counterparts for the Navy and the Air Force or by respective directorates for veterans such as the Adjutant General’s Branch of Army and equivalent branches of the Navy and the Air Force,” the letter states.
The president of the IESL has urged the PM not to allow the placing of the defence services in the Schedule 2 of the RTI Act as adequate protection is already available under Section 8 and 9 of the Act. “In the interest of maintaining the image of India as a modern, democratic country who government has transparency as one of its ley result areas, it is hoped you would nip this short sighted, wrongly projected and ill-conceived move in the bud,” the letter says.
Army Engineers save man stuck in well
There are many rescue attempts of Army from borewells and old wells which hit the headlines but some of them do not get highlighted because they are conducted in the interiors of the country. One such rescue took place on June 3 in Barmer where the Army Engineers successfully save a man who had fallen into a brick lined well at a depth of 120 feet.A joint team of Army and civil administration executed a successful ten hours operation to extricate the civilian stuck in debris of the brick lined well.
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