Employees demand scrapping of Contributory Pension Scheme

Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Contributory Pension Scheme Employees (APCPSE) on Saturday demanded that the Andhra Pradesh government should immediately scrap the CPS and restore the old pension scheme. Thousands of teachers working in municipalities and municipal corporations and employees working in various State government departments applied for en mass leave and boycotted the duties protesting against the inaction of the State government to concede their demand.

The Andhra Pradesh government launched the CPS on September 1, 2004, and scrapped the old pension scheme. Since then, thousands of employees have been observing black day on September 1 every year and protesting in various forms. In Vijayawada, thousands of employees mostly teachers and staff working in revenue, Panchayat Raj, irrigation, transport and other departments took out a rally from Railway Station to Gymkhana grounds, where the leaders of various unions spoke demanding that the government should immediately scrap the CPS.

Opposition parties the Congress and YSRCP extended support to the CPS employees on the occasion. Addressing the huge gathering of employees and teachers, Amaravati JAC chairman Bopparaju Venkatewarlu said scrapping of CPS is the very important demand of the CPS employees. He said the previous Congress government had introduced the CPS. Venkateswarlu said 1.84 lakh State government employees and their family members would get relief with the scrapping of Contributory Pension Scheme and added that the 
employees were suffering huge loss due to the implementation of CPS.

AP JAC Amaravati Secretary General T V Phani Perraju, co-chairman Yogeswar Reddy, Krishna district chairman D Eswar, Municipal Teachers Federation state president S Ramakrishna and representatives of Assistant Executive Engineers Association, Veterinary Surgeons Association, Electricity Employees Association, Panchayat Engineers NGOs Association, Village Panchayat Employees Association, Labour Department Employees Association and others spoke on the occasion. Earlier, they conducted ‘Walk for Pension’ from railway station to Gymkhana grounds where they conducted the meeting.

A total of 93,835 teachers applied for the leave on Saturday and 68,832 teachers attended the duty in 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh. Teachers unions are strongly fighting against the CPS and have been demanding that the government restore the old pension scheme. The CPS is applicable to the teachers who joined after 2004. PCC chief N Raghuveera Reddy, YSRCP leader and former minister K Parthasarathy, former MLA Malladi Vishnu and others spoke on the occasion. They condemned the inaction of the TDP government in conceding the justified demands of the CPS employees.