Follow Rajasthan govt, restore old pension scheme in Himachal: Staff

Our Correspondent

Nurpur, April 25

The Himachal Pradesh State New Pension Scheme (NPS) Retired Employees Federation and the Kangra District NPS Employees Association have demanded the immediate withdrawal of Rs 7,442.51 crore deposited with the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) meant for disbursal of pension under the NPS.

Sanjiv Guleria, state president of the federation, and Rajinder Minhas, president of the Kangra association, in a joint statement here yesterday said that the total contributed amount had reached Rs 7,442.51 crore.

They appealed to the state government to use it for restoring the old pension scheme (OPS) for which over one lakh NPS employees had been struggling since 2014.

They claimed that the employees had rejected the NPS enforced by the Central Government in January 2004, but the then Virbhadra government had notified it in 2006 from back date on May 15, 2003.

They lamented that the retired NPS employees were leading a miserable life as their pension was too meager to sustain their lives.

The leaders said that as per information obtained under the RTI Act, the state government had paid Rs 17.85 crore to the NSDL from May 2003 to December 2021 as fund management charges.

“The NPS employees are against investing their pension money in the equity market. The state government should withdraw money from the NSDL as done by the Rajasthan Government and use it to restore the OPS as well as creating a development fund,” they added.

They said that the government, in its reply to an Opposition MLA’s question during the recent Budget session, had admitted that the exchequer required Rs 2,000 crore in one go and Rs 500 crore per year to restore the OPS, which could easily be managed by withdrawing funds deposited with the NSDL.