In 2006, a few months after my retirement, I attended an official ESM rally. It was called by Distt Soldiers board, Udaipur and attended by State board Secy, a retd Brig and the local fmn cdr (Brig Cdr). The Secy DSB, a superseded Ex capt (prematurely released), in his speech equated the ESM with fused bulbs! He further clarified that during service, the soldiers have power since they are like bulbs connected to a power source. So they glow. But after retirement this power cord is cut and ESM become fused bulbs.
I took strong objection to this and brought the mental attitude and thought process to every bodies notice incl superior fmn cdrs of AOR udaipur i.e. 12 ** and 12 ***.
I was told, surprisingly, that soldier boards have got nothing to do with Fmns. and not under their control, hence nothing can be done about their activities and attitudes.
I have gone into deeper details since then and want to share my info for all to notice and comment-
1. The Kendriya Sainik Board (KSB) and the Rajya and Distt Sainik boards are Constitutional Govt bodies
2. They all have definite charter of duties and are duty bound to perform their given tasks. The details of these tasks are available on net under Govt sites, uploaded by centre and states under the RTI act.
3. The President., PM , Governors and CMs are functionaries of these boards. More so ever, the COAS and Army Cdrs are also on the board with mandatory supervisory roles specified
4. I can tell you Dear colleagues that not even .1 % of the given charter and duties are being performed by these constitutional and mandatory bodies. And no one is asking them WHY ! The Udaipur Distt Soldier board is defunct. The Collector is supposed to be the chairman. And he does not know it? The Southern and South western Army Cdrs are on the board of Raj State board with chartered constitutional duty to supervise the board functions . And their rep at 12 *** replies that they have got NOTHING to do with DSBs .
5. So my question to all is - Why are we not coming together and asking the concerned people to do their Job for which they are being paid ? Let me tell you Sirs that the ESM lobby to be strong enough to directly influence Govt decision on 6th cpc is a far far objective. No amount of rallies can achieve this aim . The civil Govt and Political parties are past masters in this type of approach. They will soon high jack the rally approach from you and start shouting slogans along with you.
I feel that we should formulate the following approach-
1 . Hold the serving Armed Forces personnel dealing with cpc responsible , through respective Chiefs, and ask for details of action taken by them under RTI at every stage. The Chiefs and PSOs should not be permitted to abdicate from their duties towards soldiers- serving or retired. The retd PSOs and Chiefs have got no business of write long wailing letters to PMs and exhort ESM to come on the streets with begging bowl. Let them explain first as to what they did when they were in a posn to do some thing ! For that matter , the three serving chiefs going to DM , AFTER the report was submitted to FM is a joke in itself.
2. Let the offrs provide lead in every distt of the country and hold all constitutional personnel involved with Soldier boards responsible to perform their tasks. Let us use RTI and Net to bombard the civil and Mil functionaries of these boards so that every soldier in the nook and corner of the country gets his rightful due and rightful recognition already promised under the constitutional provision.
3. While doing this let us not forget the following-
( a). There is ESM population and world beyond NCR( NOIDA, Delhi, Gurgaon) and Chandigarh also
(b). The Distt level strengthening of ESM will actually provide the real backbone and power to the national ESM body. We should actually strengthen the ESM from bottom to top . The top actually comprising of NCR and CHD with all EX Chiefs and PSOs is strong enough to hold of its own
4. Comments are invited.