Ministry of Defence  – Media Centre

A group of disabled war heroes retired on medical grounds while in active service met the State Minister of Defence Hon. Premitha Bandara Tennakoon at his office in Colombo on June 26 to discuss several issues they face.

The veterans while expressing their views requested the State Minister to make necessary arrangements to increase their disability allowance from the present 10 percent to 20 percent.

The State Minister responding to their request said that the government is incurring a huge expenditure in paying their salaries and allowances for the duration of their lives, paying the salaries and allowances of disabled war heroes after their death to their families and paying salaries and allowances to the spouses of war heroes who die after the age of 55 years. He emphasized that these payments will be continued in the future as well. He also said that he expects to look into the matter regarding any discrepancies of salaries of these war heroes after looking into the statistics and discussing them with the relevant officials.

Several officials from the Defence Ministry were also present at the discussion.