OROP row: Javadekar says solution "acceptable to all" soon

By PTI

| Updated: Thursday, September 3, 2015, 2:09 [IST]

New Delhi, Sept 2: The government today refrained from setting a timeline for resolving the OROP issue but said it is committed to implementing the promise, expressing confidence that a solution "acceptable to all" will be found "very soon".

"We will deliver OROP sooner than later to the satisfaction of all. We will do what is justifiable, what is convincing. After all, we are doing justice to society as a whole...I am not a jyotishi (astrologer) to tell you the exact date.

OROP row: Javadekar says solution acceptable to all soon.

Final solution you will see in few days," Union Minister Prakash Javadekar told Karan Thapar on India Today channel. Rejecting contentions that the government was losing faith of ex-servicemen, he said he was sure that both sides will see reason.

"We will deliver what we have promised," he said, but deflected questions on whether the government will implement OROP in toto, as promised. He said updation of pension every year is an issue.

RSS favours immediate implementation of OROP RSS favours immediate implementation of OROP

"Fine capability of politics is to avoid both resentment and financial strain," he said. On whether government could have handled the OROP issue better, he said, the patience of ex-servicemen was getting exhausted after 10 years of rejection by the Congress governments.

"It is their fault that we are correcting," he said. On the key economic reform measure GST, which government is finding difficult to pass in Parliament due to opposition from Congress, he said, "GST will happen sooner than later. I strongly believe that GST will be rolled out on April 1, 2016.

Congress is backsliding on the issue. It was UPA's bill. GST was a critical reform for the country and not only for BJP."

The Minister also denied suggestions that Prime Minister Modi was being obstinate by not talking to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi directly to resolve the issue and said government has reached out to the opposition on many occasions.

Javadekar said government's decision not to re-promulgate land ordinance for the fourth time was "no back-tracking" and that steps were taken to empower states to frame their own laws and decide on the consent clause and social impact assessment.

PTI