New Delhi: As the Narendra Modi government completes one year in office, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar says his biggest challenge has been to overcome the prevailing fear of scams and kickbacks.
"It was basically situation where no decisions were coming through and no file movement was there. Probably this was out of fear as everyone suspected everyone. Due to this, people thought every decision has involvement of some kickback or scam or probable scam. In the first three months, I must have nearly 200 briefing notes, printed letters. I still get anonymous notes from lobbies, but they will not stop process," he said.
He said that though he gets thorough research done before giving a green signal, he doesn't let the process affect the speed. "If I'm convinced that something said has some technical meaning or probably failure, I get it checked but I don't stop the process.
Speaking on the contentious issue of 'one rank one pension' in the Armed forces, he said the veterans should have patience as the government will fulfil its promise. "We haven't cleared it. It is a promise for which I have done an extensive exercise of preparing the tabulation of how it should be done and what are the logics behind it because before that no one could exactly put it down in a tabulated, proposal format," he said.
Strongly advocating the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), he said, "Army cannot operate without AFSPA. Whether you deploy it or not is the choice of other departments, it doesn't depend on me but if I am required to operate as law maintaining in many areas, Army requires that power," he said.
The Union Home Ministry had in March 2015 rejected an official Committee recommendation for repeal of the Act. Brushing aside all criticism against the Act which is dubbed as "draconian" by several human rights organisations, the Home Ministry had said that the Act was needed for Army to operate in areas hit by militancy or insurgency.
A five-member committee, headed by Justice Jeevan Reddy, a former Supreme Court judge, had submitted its report on June 6, 2005 suggesting scrapping of the law as it was a "a symbol of oppression".
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