Facing heat from the employees over the delay in implementing the old pension scheme (OPS), the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – led Punjab Government is planning to implement it soon, especially ahead of the crucial Gujarat assembly elections where the party is trying to make inroads.
Punjab Cabinet, in its meeting scheduled on Friday, is expected to discuss the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) before its implementation. However, the major challenge ahead of the cash-strained state is a deposit of nearly Rs 18,000 crore to the pension fund authorities.
It has been learnt that the state Finance Department is working overtime to chalk out the modalities to build up the required fund. Also, the government is taking a legal opinion on the issue.
Notably, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had, ahead of Diwali, announced reverting to Old Pension Scheme (OPS). “My government is considering reverting to the Old Pension System (OPS). I have asked my Chief Secretary to study the feasibility and modalities of its implementation. We stand committed to the welfare of our employees,” he had tweeted.
The announcement was made, the previous month, ahead of the assembly polls in the neighboring hill state — Himachal Pradesh — after the state’s agitating employees threatened to hold a series of poll-khol rallies across the State against the AAP which was promising OPS as its poll guarantee.
Now, once again, the state’s employees, peeved over the AAP Government’s lackadaisical attitude in fulfilling its commitment even after a month of announcement, had announced to hold a similar “poll-khol” rally in the poll-bound Gujarat, where AAP is locked in a high octane-battle against the BJP.
Running the campaign against the AAP led Punjab Government, the members of Punjab’s Contributory Pension Fund Employees’ Union (CPFEU) would be visiting Ahmedabad (in Gujarat) to expose AAP to the people of Gujarat.
Political parties, ahead of assembly polls in Himachal and Gujarat, are raising OPS as one of its key promises.
Already, two Congress-ruled states — Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — have decided to implement the OPS. A non-BJP-ruled state, Jharkhand, too had decided to revert to the old pension scheme. In case, the AAP-led Punjab Government decides to implement the OPS, it will become the third state to do so.
Notably, Punjab was among the first states in the country to adopt the New Pension Scheme (NPS), which got implemented on April 1, 2004.
Under the OPS, the employees pay 10 percent of their salary to the contributory pension fund, and the Government pays 14 percent. The collected amount is then deposited with the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).
In case of Punjab, the required amount to revert to OPS is nearly Rs 18,000 crore — a major hurdle in the smooth implementation of the scheme, especially with the PFRDA having already refused to refund the money to Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh governments.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had also, at an earlier occasion, said that the money in the National Pension System (NPS) belonged to individual contributors as per law and that the State Governments could not avail it.