Soldiers fight for the nation at the cost of their own lives. They and their families deserve all forms of governmental support.
The 15th Finance Commission is planning a move that would offer financial support to the soldiers killed or injured in wars.
It is planning to set up a Rs. 10,000-15,000 crore fund for welfare of jawans under a special allocation for defense.
“We were the first (Finance) Commission to visit Ladakh, we saw some very moving presentations on the Kargil war and we recognise that sacrifices by young men for India’s protection must be recognized and we need to have some institutional arrangement, like a large corpus for Jawan Welfare Fund,” the 15th Finance Commission Chairman NK Singh said in a statement.
According to Singh, the corpus may also extend to soldiers’ families.
However, he urges the government to ensure there is no duplication of this fund with the funds that state and central governments allocate separately.
A special panel under Singh will look into various such aspects of ensuring required resources to the defense and the proposed Jawan Welfare Fund.
Besides the Commission Chairman, secretaries of defense, home and expenditure departments will be part of this panel.
“We are getting different assessments for defense forces and paramilitary. We need to try and make sure that we don’t excessively centralise it and create a robust one for defense and internal security because they are being governed by two large ministries,” Singh adds.
It is noteworthy that the armed forces are crucial to homeland security and under the Modi administration, they are getting more sops in encouragement to their bold efforts.
