National Freedom Fighters Pension Scheme

On the 70^th Independence Day of the country, Prime Minister Modi announced a 20% hike in the pension of the Freedom Fighters. This has been carried out thoroughly.

Freedom fighters and pension

The Freedom Fighters had been living on a pension since the new era. However, not much thought had been given to their pension hike lately. PM Modi announced that he will be giving a hike of 20% to the Freedom Fighters’ families.

“Pension for our freedom fighters will be increased by 20 percent. So those who are receiving Rs 25,000 will now get Rs 30, 000,” Modi said in Red Fort by addressing the Freedom Fighters’ families.

Not just this, he also announced that Museums will be held to acknowledge the glory of the past. These Museums will hold the stories of the lesser known tribal freedom fighters. The tribal freedom fighters are the ones that have given much into fighting for the country. However, they are not known or recognized much. This is why to glorify their input into the nation, Museums will be established.

Not just this, PM Modi also declared “Tribals played an important role in out freedom struggle. Our government is planning to open museums all over the country to glorify their role so that future generations can know about their sacrifices.”

Rise in the pension amount (exact)

As per these statements, the pension of the Freedom fighters has been raised. For different types of freedom fighters, the raise has been different. The pension of freedom fighters:

Who have suffered, but outside of the British India, has been raised from Rs. 23085 to Rs. 28000 per month. This is a whopping Rs. 5000 increase in their pensions.
Who were in the Indian National Army (INA) has been raised from Rs. 21395 to Rs. 26000 per month. The same is applicable for their families as well.
Who were wrongly incarcerated in jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been raised by Rs. 5000 and is now Rs. 30,000. This amount is the
Who were held in the Andaman jail and for their spouses has been raised from Rs. 24775 to Rs. 30,000 per month.

Other aspects of the pension

Raising the pension is one side of the entire effect. There were other considerations and calculations to be made for this purpose, such as:

The freedom fighters also have daughters and dependents on them. The emoluments for the daughters of the freedom fighters have been raised to 50% of the sum that would have been given to the freedom fighters.
At present there was dearness relief system which has now been replaced with dearness allowance system. This is the same system which is applicable for all the government employees twice a year for all the freedom fighter pensioners.
PM Modi had announced that there would be a 218 per cent hike in the dearness relief earlier during the 73^rd anniversary of the Quit India Movement, which was last August.

Let us take a look at the things we’ve known:

Sl. No.	Information	Data
1	Pension for unmarried daughters earlier	Rs. 4770
2	Percentage of hike in pension	20%
3	Total number of freedom fighters	37000
4	Pension for two spouses earlier	Rs. 10,064 each

The existing pension scheme for Central freedom fighter pensioners and their eligible dependents has been restructured as follows:-

Sl. No.	Category of Freedom Fighters	Present amount of pension (per month)	Enhanced amount of pension (per month)
1.	Ex-Andaman Political Prisoners/ spouses	Rs. 24,775	Rs. 30,000/-
2.	Freedom fighters who suffered outside British India/spouses	Rs. 23,085/-	Rs. 28,000/-
3.	Other Freedom Fighters / spouses including INA	Rs. 21,395/-	Rs. 26,000/-
4.	Dependent parents/eligible daughters (maximum 3 daughters at any point of time)	Rs. 3,380/-	50% of the sum that would have been admissible to the Freedom Fighter i.e. in the range of Rs. 13,000/- to Rs. 15,000/-

Source of Table : http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=150975

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