President Maithripala Sirisena presented service pension benefit letters to the retired differently abled War Heroes who volunteered to retire before completing their 12 year mandatory service period at the Presidential Secretariat, yesterday (14th Feb.).
The pension benefits were given to 2,261 tri forces personnel and to 136 police officers and marking the event the President symbolically presented the pension benefit letters to 150 war heroes.
Differently abled War Heroes who volunteered to retire before their due retirement day were not entitled to pension benefits till today and no government in power drew their attention to this issue.
Though it is contradictory to grant this service pension to the disabled war heroes who had not been in the service for 12 years, the President paying his special attention on this issue and after receiving the Cabinet approval decided to provide this service pension to them for the first time in the history.
State Minister of Defence , RuwanWijewardene, Secretary to the Minister of Law and Order, Jagath P. Wijeweera, Chief of Defence Staff , Air Chief Marshal Kolitha Gunathilaka, the Commander of the Sri Lankan Army , Lieutenant General Chrishanthe De Silva, the Air Force Commander, Air Marshal Kapila Jayampathi also participated.