UK agrees to hike Gurkha pensions
Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – The British government has announced an increase in the pensions of veteran Gurkhas beginning in April.
Wrapping up a visit to Nepal on Wednesday, the British Minister for Defense Personnel, Welfare and Veterans, Andrew Robathan, announced a 9.6 percent hike in retirement pay for Gurkha soldiers who had served in the British Army and their dependents.
Gurkha veterans have been fighting for years in British courts over unequal pension pay.
In addition, the monetary allowance for those who have been awarded gallantry medals will be increased significantly and payments will be backdated to 2008, Robathan announced. The recipients are largely elderly veterans who fought in Malaya and Borneo.
Nepali Gurkhas have been a part of the British Army for almost 200 years. More than 200,000 fought in the two world wars, and in the past 50 years they have served in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Borneo, Cyprus, the Falklands, and Kosovo and now in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the BBC. Around 3,500 Gurkhas now serve in the British army and many of these are deployed in Afghanistan.
The ongoing pension battle is one of the major tussles between Gurkha veterans and the British government. Just last year, the Gurkha veterans won the right to live in the United Kingdom and a struggle is ongoing for equal pension rights payments for veterans who retired before July 1, 1997, when the Gurkha headquarters were moved from Hong Kong to Britain.
More than 36,000 Gurkha veterans were affected by a High Court decision in October that rejected their petition for pensions comparable to those for British veterans.
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