Sitharaman's office responds to accusation of misuse of disability pens

Nirmala Sitharaman

New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's office on Tuesday tweeted a letter from the armed forces seeking a curb on the growing practice of seeking compensation even for lifestyle diseases. The tweet came at a time when she was facing the flak for taxing the disability pension of servicemen.

The tweet shared had an unsigned statement of the armed forces saying that the rising trend of seeking disability pensions needs to be checked. The step was taken as the army cannot have a large number of personnel with medical disabilities in their rank and file when the security challenges to the nation are on the rise.

The statement had a caption, "Response of the Armed Forces on the issue of taxability of disability pension."

The note went on to make a distinction between pension for those soldiers wounded in battle and others who are seeking financial gains through their disabilities.

But the veterans did not agree with comments made in the post tweeted by the minister.

Navdeep Singh, a veteran who is at the forefront of service related issues, said that it was shocking that the armed forces provided an unsigned note to the minister. He said that there are two kinds of disability benefits and both are allowed under the rules -- war injury pension and normal disability pension.

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