Defence Ministry to work on reducing court cases in service matters

NEW DELHI: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today directed his Ministry to evolve a policy for reducing court cases in service matters including pensions and said he is committed to early implementation of 'one rank, one pension' for the armed forces.

In a message on Good Governance Day, he said minimisation of litigation is a priority and that issues of cantonments pertaining to land management and civilian interface should also be resolved without delay.

Asserting that the Defence Ministry is committed to early implementation of 'one rank, one-pension' for the armed forces, he said "measures are being taken for the same".

"I have instructed the concerned officers to evolve a policy for reducing court cases in service matters including pensions as well as in issues of cantonments pertaining to land management and civilian interface," he said.

Parrikar noted that the public grievances are being forwarded to the concerned officers using online methods and stressed on their time-bound disposal.

"In this context, I have directed all concerned to accord utmost importance to time-bound disposal of public grievances in the Ministry as also regular monitoring of the pendency of public grievances by senior officers," he said.

Talking about Good Governance Day being observed by the NDA government in honour of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Parrikar said his Ministry takes pride in joining this occasion for bringing in transparency and accountability in its working.

Greater emphasis is being given to the use of technology in order to make the system prompt and efficient and to bridge the divide between the Government and the citizens, he said.

Listing the examples of use of technology, he said the Ministry has adopted a number of Good Governance initiatives like promoting e-governance, e-procurement, biometric attendance, digitisation of records, online disposal of public grievances and use of online monitoring of the status of Court/Tribunal/NHRC cases.

An intra-MoD portal has been developed for supporting these applications in the Ministry, he said.

Parrikar praised the Directorate General of Defence Estates saying they have made good progress in digitisation of defence land records.

History division of the Ministry has also digitised War Records. Several other digitised records like recruitment rules, civil lists among others are likely to be placed on our website very soon, he said.

He also invited for suggestions and ideas via email to nic-asst.mod@nic.in to further the cause of good governance.