ITANAGAR, 28 Feb: The National Movement for Old Pension Scheme’s (NMOPS) Delhi unit president Manjeet Singh Patel and NMOPS Northeast coordinator Dilip Singh visited Itanagar on Sunday to raise their voice against the national pension scheme (NPS) and its flaws.
The NMOPS, which has been formed to oppose the NPS, is a federation of central and state government employees and their associations.
Various state and central government employees from different parts of Arunachal were present during an awareness programme organized by the NMOPS at a city hotel here.
During the programme, Patel briefed about the NPS and its demerits to all the participants.
“Since January 2004, the central government has imposed a new pension system, ie, NPS, for government employees recruited after 31 December, 2003, to replace the old pension scheme. The new pension scheme does not provide the guarantee of minimum pension on last basic salary drawn by the employees,” said Patel.
The ‘restore old pension’ campaign is being spearheaded by the NMOPS, a federation with over 13 lakh government employees as its members.
Among other issues, the NPS or the national pension scheme does not have the provision for inclusion of revised dearness allowance in the pension, “whereas the old scheme allowed employees to get benefits of revision of dearness allowance announced twice a year,” said Patel.
He also highlighted that a few state government employees who recently
retired under the NPS after serving 10-12 years in the UP government got only Rs 750-900 as pension, “which is just a joke with government employees.”
The NPS is a share-market-linked pension system for the central and state government employees, which is highly risky in nature, he said, adding that the NMOPS is working actively in more than 16 states and union territories, including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, among others.
It was decided by the participants that they would create awareness among other NPS employees of the state government in all the districts of Arunachal for the welfare of government employees.
