Himachal Pradesh Govt Reinstates Old Pension Scheme | 10 Points To Explain The Move

The Old Pension Scheme was approved by the Himachal Pradesh government during its first cabinet meeting on Friday. The move was termed a “Lohri gift” to 1.36 lakh employees, who are currently registered under the New Pension Scheme.

When the new decision was taken, the employees were ecstatic and danced to the tune of local folk dance “Nati”. Various employees associations have hailed the decision and thanked the government.

The state BJP chief Suresh Kashyap, however, accused the government of misleading the employees on the issue of OPS and said the Congress has failed to implement the guarantees promised by it in ten days and has even deferred the payment of arrears.

The Congress party had promised to take a decision to restore Old Pension Scheme (OPS) at the first meeting of the government and it stood by the promise.  The Cabinet also decided to adopt the Election Manifesto of the Congress party as policy document of the Government.

A Look At What Moving Back To OPS Means

1. Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said: “During her election tour, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi told us to promise restoration of OPS and we included it in the Pratigya Patra and fulfilled the promise at very first cabinet meeting”.
2. He added that the benefits of old pension scheme would be given from January 13, 2023 and a notification in this regard will be issued soon.
3. Asserting that the promise to provide Rs 1,500 per month to women in the age bracket of 18 to 60 years would be implemented, the chief minister said that a cabinet sub-committee headed by Agriculture Minister Chander Kumar and Dhani Ram Shandil, Anirudh Singh and Jagat Negi as members has been constituted to prepare a road map for disbursement of Rs 1,500 per month in 30 days.
4. Accusing the previous government of financial mismanagement, the chief minister said his government not only inherited debt liability of Rs 75,000 crore but also committed liability of Rs 11,000 crore pertaining to employees and pensioners
5. The BJP government has not paid arrears of Rs 4,430 crores to employees, Rs 5,226 crores to pensioners and Rs 1,000 crores dearness allowance of sixth pay commission.
6. Under the New Pension Scheme (NPS), employees and government contributed ten per cent and 14 per cent respectively and an amount of Rs 8,000 crore is lying with Central government, which is reluctant to reimburse the amount but government has decided to go without it and three per cent increase on GST on diesel would help generate additional funds, Sukhu said.
7. Sukhu reiterated the state government has not restored OPS for votes but for giving social security and safeguarding self respect of the employees, who have scripted history of development of Himachal Pradesh.  The matter has been studied in depth and in spite of some reservations by finance officers, the issue has been settled and all the employees under the NPS would be covered under OPS, he added.
8. Sukhu also said that the government de-notified over 900 institutions opened by the previous BJP Government without budget as a sum of Rs 5,000 crores was required to make them functional, adding that harsh decisions would have to be taken as the government cannot run under huge debt.
9. Employees who joined government service from January 1, 2004 are covered under NPS. The new pension scheme is a contributory scheme in which the government and employees contribute 10 and 14 per cent of the salary respectively towards the pension fund while in the old pension scheme employees with 20 years of service used to get 50 per cent of last drawn salary as pension.
10. “We had informed the government that the liability for 2022-23 under the NPS is Rs 1,632 crores out of which employees and Government would deposit Rs 680 crores and Rs 952 crores respectively, while the liability under the OPS would only be Rs 147 crores,” said Pradeep Thakur, President of New Pension Scheme Employees Federation Himachal.