After years of court battle, the British Gurkhas will finally enjoy full British Army pensions — nearly 200 years after they started serving in the British force.

According to report by British newspaper Daily Telegraph , the historic announcement will be made in the House of Commons on Thursday.

Gurkhas joined British Army in 1815, with 110,000 enlisted in World War II. They fought in the Falklands War, both Iraq invasions and are currently serving in Afghanistan as well.

Pensions for riflemen with 15 years’ experience will increase by five folds — from £1,200 to at least £6,600. Persons serving in senior ranks will get more than 7,000 pounds a year or considerably more depending on the time they have served.

The daily states, “The deal means that the highly-regarded troops will have incomes worth a considerable amount when they retire to their homeland.”

All Gurkhas who joined the Army from July 1, 1997 will be offered the chance to transfer to the scheme. There are currently 3,500 Gurkhas in the British force, the majority of whom have served on all overseas operations, especially Afghanistan and Iraq . The number was as high as 110,000 during the World War II.

For decades they have been on a lower pension band than British soldiers while doing the same job and facing the same dangers, the report said.

Veteran’s minister Derek Twigg will inform the House of the change, which is expected to cost the Ministry of Defence £20 million a year. The move was taken following a Downing Street protest by retired Gurkhas in December.

“They fight and die for Britain and fully deserve to be treated the same as everyone else in the Army,” another daily The Sun quoted a government official as saying.

But older Gurkha veterans are still in poverty because the British Ministry of Defence has abandoned them, it said.

“Troops who served during and since the World War II were becoming ‘increasingly desperate’, living on less than £20 a month. The Government had refused to examine their cases because of a ‘magic cut-off date,” the daily reads.

They were excluded from the Armed Forces Pension Scheme as chiefs said they would have more cash than they could handle.

While the review has been going on into the terms and conditions of soldiers who joined up after 1997 – when the Gurkhas’ headquarters moved to Britain after Hong Kong was handed back to China – an estimated 25,000 living in Nepal have been ignored.

The ministry maintains that all Gurkhas who retired or were made redundant before 1997 were either given lump sum payments or pensions that reflected the local standard of living and do not need to be included in the review.

Last year the British government made changes in the law allowing Gurkhas to stay in Britain after they retire. They qualify for a passport after two years in Britain.

Back in Nepal , there are reports of British Gurkhas migrating to the UK for their living, which eventually has affected local markets. n