A letter from Brig Sivasankar Vidyasagar

Dear Col Babu Pappachan Sir, Thank you so much for your initiative to get details. I can understand your frustration. I have been Director Sainik Welfare, A.P, as I told you, for six years from 2006 to 2012. I found employees in this department in A.P are bureaucratic in nature. For them it is a job and not service. They come at 1030 hrs and pack up their bags by 1630 to leave at 1700 hrs come rain or hailstorm. What kind of welfare they do I know being an insider. I know Director Sainik Welfare, Kerala who used to meet me in many meetings held in KSB & DGR , Delhi and in South Zone KSB meetings. Pl don't expect much from them. Sir, I do understand the limitation of SMS. But even Govt of India is employing this medium to educate the farmers. If a widow in a remote village in Kerala gets some information on her mobile she feels wanted and has the confidence that someone is helping her. I will definitely come to Kerala, God's Own Country. You can plan my visit to various districts of Kerala in the month of January 2016 as I am committed in Tamilnadu in Dec 2015. I will pay for my travel in various parts of Kerala. Kindly intimate me my itinerary by end of Nov 2015 so that I can do rail reservation to reach a central place in Kerala in Jan 2016. Sir, the exercise we have undertaken is very slow, laborious and frustrating one. We do not get volunteers the way we expected. But after some movement, it will quicken the pace. This is because people have lost faith in the so called NGOs who do nothing. They suspect our intentions. But by actions we prove them wrong. Pl, send e-mails, Facebook messages, Whatsapp posts of seeking volunteers to be District Coordinators, Tehsil Coordinators and Village Coordinator. Many JCOs and NCOs and even OR use these social media extensively. I have no doubt Kerala being the most literate state, we will achieve success. Even if our experiment succeeds in one district and one tehsil and one village we are happy. Slowly it will spread like wild fire. Nb Sub Shanmugam of Virudhunagar rang me up today and said " We will pay for your train fare or even air fare. Pl come and educate us on 13 Dec 2015, Sunday at Virudhnagar. We will make all arrangements for your talk". I made all my reservation from Secunderabad to Chennai and onto Virudhnagar to be in time there for my talk on 13 Dec, Sunday. As I have a day halt in Chennai on 12 Dec 2015, Saturday, Col TN Raman is organising a meeting with JCOs , OR widows in Chennai (on 12 Dec 2015). Seeing this Lt Col Krishnan, a fellow Bombay Sapper who hails from a place near Virudhnagar tells me to cancel my reservation from Chennai to Virudhnagar on 12 Dec as he wants to attend my talk in Chennai on 12 Dec and then accompany me to place short of Virudhnagar. Col Sundar wanted me to visit Vellore, Arani and Tiruvnnamalai on my return trip. He told me not to go back to Hyderabad from Chennai on 14 Dec 2015. He told me to change my plans and stay put in Tamilnadu for few more days. I am overwhelmed at this kind of reception to my simple mail in the net. I am going to Bhubaneswar to give talk to retired officers at the invitation of Maj Gen Basant Mahapatra, JSW 5 Course and former GOC 33 Mech Div on 14 Nov, Saturday. Mrs Shakuntala Bhandarkar, wife of a martyred officer, wants me to come to Belgaum to give a talk to War Widows of Karnataka after I come back from Bhubaneswar any day after 18 Nov 2015. So, Sir, once people trust your good intentions, everything will fall in their place. But we must have patience. My humble advice to you is to get one or two District Co-Ordinators, one to two Tehsil Co-Ordiantors and one or two Village Co-Ordinators. Let us start with simple exercise of telling them as to what is their pension arrears from Jan 2006 to 23 Sep 2012. Let them give us simple data of what is their pension as on Jan 2006 (to be found from bank pass book of the period Apr - Jun 2009), pension as on Jul 2009 (to be found in bank pass book of the period Aug to Dec 2009) and finally what is their pension as on 24 Sep 2012 ( to be found out from bank pass book in the period Nov - Dec 2012 or Jan to Mar 2013). These three bit of data is good enough to calculate their pension arrears. Even rank, no of years of qualifying service and X or Y Gp is not required. If we are able to give them their pension arrears, then you will phone will not stop ringing. Then you see flood of SMSs coming to you which will keep you busy. I am sending 26 tables of JCOs, OR and Widow for pension arrears from Jan 2006 to 23 Sep 2012. Refer to them and give a reply immediately. Then you see what will happen. Babu sir, I assure you in very short time, you will become a house hold name in Kerala. And that is what I want. In your mails make your mobile no appear prominent. Let me assure you no one troubles you in late night hours. ESMs and Widows are extremely sensible. Pl do not under estimate them. regards, Brig CS Vidyasagar (Rtd) 9493191380 Like