Wednesday, 01 November 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The decision of the State cabinet to provide the option of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) to the employees who are currently under the New Pension Scheme (NPS) but whose recruitment requisition or the advertisements were released before October 1, 2005 has boosted the morale of the employees demanding restoration of OPS in the State. On Monday, the cabinet headed by the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami took the decision which will benefit about 7,000 employees of the State government. The NPS was made mandatory for all the employees recruited in the government service after October 1, 2005 in the State. However there are about 7,000 such employees who were recruited after the aforementioned date but the recruitment advertisement/requisition was issued before October 1, 2005. These employees were demanding the benefit of OPS for them and had even taken the issue to the court.
The president of Uttarakhand chapter of the National Movement for Old Pension Scheme (NMOPS) Jeetmani Painyuli said that the organisation was consistently demanding that all the employees recruited through the advertisements released before October 1, 2005 should be given the benefit of OPS. He expressed gratitude to CM Dhami for the decision. Painyuli added that the NMOPS will continue to fight for abolition of NPS and restoration of OPS for all the employees.
It is worth mentioning here that there are more than 90,000 employees, teachers and officers which are currently under the NPS in the State which was started in the year 2005 to reduce the increasing burden of pension on the state exchequer. Under it a portion of the salary of the employees is deducted every month and the government makes an equal contribution. This is invested in different debt and equity instruments to build up a corpus for the employee and on his retirement he or she receives the pension from the interest incurred from the corpus. The employees are finding the NPS non lucrative and are demanding the restoration of OPS
