171 ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the LOC in 4 years: Govt informs Lok Sabha

02 Dec 2009 8ak/PIB: The government on Monday informed the Lok Sabha that 171 ceasefire violations had been made by Pakistan along the LOC. 128 of which were cases of ground violation, while 43 were related to airspace violation.  "3, 21, 77 and 27 incidents of ground ceasefire violation have been committed in 2006, 07, 08 and until November 25 this year respectively by Pakistan," Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in a reply to a Lok Sabha query.

He further appraised the house of the measures that are taken to curb such incidents in the future. He said that any violation is taken up with the authorities in Pakistan through established contact mechanism like flag-meetings and weekly talk between the Director Generals of Military Operations.

Replying to another query raised on the issue of one rank one pension, Antony informed the Lok Sabha that the demand for one rank one pension had been rejected after a Committee under Cabinet Secretary considered all the aspects of the proposal and found the idea to be administratively infeasible to be implemented.

"However, several other recommendations by the Committee to substantially improve pension benefits of jawans and commissioned officers have been made, which have been accepted by the Government," Antony added.

These measures include removal of linkage of full pension from 33 years of service, revision of Lt General Pensions after carving out a separate pay scale for them and removal of cap on war injury element of pension.