Treat paramilitary forces on par with Army: Deepender Hooda

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 29

Congress MP from Rohtak Deepender Singh Hooda on Friday raised issues of paramilitary forces in the Lok Sabha and urged Home Minister Rajnath Singh to invite the association of retired officers and address their grievances.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, the MP said it would be wrong to call such forces as paramilitary and so should be named as internal security forces.

Demanding that they should be treated on par with the defence forces, the Rohtak MP suggested that the slain personnel of such forces should also be given the “status of martyrs as is the practice in the defence forces”.

He said, “Sacrifices made by the personnel of such forces are by no means less than those of their counterparts in the defence forces.”

He said the government had discontinued the old pension system for the personnel of the paramilitary forces who had joined in and after 2004 along with other Central Government employees. “This is not correct. Their job is not on par with other Central Government employees. The old pension system should be restored and they should also be given the benefits of the one-rank, one-pension scheme,” he said.

“I request the government to waive GST on the goods supplied to the canteens of the paramilitary forces. The government has already given the GST exemption in case of canteens meant for the defence forces,” he added.

(Earlier, the report erroneously referred to Hisar INLD MP Dushyant Chautala instead of Deepender Hooda.)