A FAUJI’S DILEMMA

 

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

17/XII/2025

 

We finally settled in the Sun City after hanging my boots and hush puppies. It was time to finally have a “permanent address”. It has been four years and we are still in the process.

 

It was also time to get all personal documents updated. Some had to be applied afresh, some needed corrections and some needed a complete overhaul.

 

The issue started with my name. The “Sarkari Mehkma” just could not feed my name right in the system especially when they fed it in Hindi and it auto translated it to English.

 

An ‘address proof’ was the beginning. To authenticate it, there is nothing more steadfast than the “Bijli Bill”, which is accepted as an accurate document for it.

 

While I was posted here from 1993 to 94. We had opened a joint bank account in the SBIs Army Area Branch. Though I was an Army Officer, the address read c/o 56 APO which was “no address” as far as the civil was concerned.

 

Before retirement from the Army in 2007, I had brought along a stamped document from the unit that I would be relocating to Jodhpur. We had an address but that place was on rent. The “purple” seal of the Army worked. I got an ESM card issued, which helped me to get a landline connection and worked for getting a passport too. We made a beginning.

 

The “ration card” was the second document. They accepted my last drawn army rations certificate as a proof and gave me a civil Ration Card. One had to go a few times to the local court to follow up.

 

Now with a suffix (Retd), I stepped into the corporate world. The old bank account continued. A new one opened with a corporate certificate with the local address of Mumbai where I started work. Leave and licence agreement was the new address proof.

 

Those days ‘Pan Card’ was introduced. I applied and now there was one more document in my kitty with an address of Bombay.

 

In Bombay, we changed homes twice, but they were in the same society. Going through the procedure of getting the address changed did not occur to the mind.

 

Five years later, I changed companies and my new work place was in Raigad district of Maharashtra. How long I was to work there was uncertain. Changing addresses in any document never occurred to my mind.

 

By then, online things had started to take shape. I tried it with the PAN card and it got updated. Luckily, we had a fresh BSNL landline there. This helped me to get our first Adhar card made.

 

Then a phase came to finally say goodbye. We had no permanent address, so to say.

 

Luckily, I had a sale deed of the house which we had purchased in 2007. That meant, if push came to shove, we had a place to call a permanent address and documents could be modified without much ado. It was a figment of my imagination.

 

The first thing was to get my name which was misspelt grossly to be registered correctly with the DISCOM. It took me two contractors, some ‘grease’ and a personal visit to the XEN to have a Bijli ka bill in my correct name to begin with for a “residential proof”.

 

That document sufficed to get the address changed in the Adhar Card. However, modification to the Adhar card had to be done at a central location and not online anymore. We met a very helpful retired Air force JCO there.

 

He gave the correct advice. Sir, whatever address, and details you want endorsed in your Adhar, I would suggest you visit the local station HQs and get it stamped and signed by the SSO. We need no other documents in support. No Bijli-pani bills. Within a month both my wife and I had new Adhar cards. Our photos no longer looked like convicts.

 

Now we could apply for local SIM cards for our mobiles as we were still on roaming.

 

It was time to get the address endorsed in our bank accounts. Somehow, there is an issue with the banks which they refuse to accept. They changed the address for the main account. However, banks have no coordination between their call centres, cheque book issuing authority and the debit/credit card forwarding people.

 

Bank staff change every year and have no clue nor are trained if a military pensioner approaches the nearest bank to say “Tiger Abhi Zinda Hai”. They direct you to a “Suvidha Kendra” to get an online declaration of submitting your life certificate, if not on SPARSH. The ping-pong continues and you miss your December pension till one raises a shindy with the Bank authorities. Finally, in January, the pension gets credited.

 

My idea to write this article is the problems we defence pensioners face. We lived all our lives at so many places in India. Thank God my last pay disbursing bank branch got converted to my pension account in Delhi, from where I retired. To get it endorsed in the PPO is another exercise one has to go through, which I dread.

 

Your ancestral house got sold, so the permanent address went with it. The whole drama of getting ‘everything on one grid’ is not easy. It could be traumatic for many.

 

It was around Christmas last year that we decided to get our voter ID cards made. We never had a chance to vote while serving in the Army or civil. Not that we like politics or politicians, but still we needed that document.

 

The BLO, a jovial and helpful chap, did all the endorsing online. Within three months we had a new valid document to exercise our franchise with our names and address correct.

 

Now, SIR came and sat on our heads. This revision is needed to separate the wheat from the chaff. We did it online and it got accepted. My wife’s voter ID of 2002 helped me to get linked to the system. I was not a resident of any state of India, but now one had to get things updated that Rajasthan is my state.

 

I should actually be given an honorary citizenship of Rajasthan. From my First posting in 1985 till Op Parakram in 2001 one served in Rajasthan for 16 years out of the 23 in the Army. One saw the remotest villages of Rajasthan like a nomad but with no address proof as such.

 

I took premature retirement in 2007 and shifted my family to the Sun City. My ESM I-Card, Passport and BSNL landline had the address of the place where we stayed temporarily. All had to be changed.

 

A fauji faces a lot of dilemmas for his permanent address. Today, everything has to be a perfect match. To get things right it is a nightmare of sorts. Most faujis will agree. My suggestion is to get things sorted out before one retires, or else…….

 

Can things be made simpler for a fauji? I wonder!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND
©® NOEL ELLIS