TJAC urges govt to put CPS on hold

Hyderabad: Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) on Tuesday demanded that the old pension scheme should be continue. The TJAC opposed the new pension scheme, known as the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

A delegation of TJAC leaders led by its Chairman Prof M Kodandaram met the Chief Secretary S P Singh and urged him to consider the demands of the employees.

The JAC leaders said the new CPS has been made mandatory for all the Central government employees recruited on or after September 1, 2004. The State government is free to either implement or reject the scheme. Pension is included in the State List under the Indian Constitution.

According Section 42 of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution ‘State Pensions, that is to say, pensions payable by the State or out of the Consolidated Fund of the State’ is a State subject. There is no obligation on the State government to implement the Central scheme. However, the State government without exercising discretion has adopted the CPS, alleged the JAC leaders.

There are around 1.2 lakh employees covered by the new scheme. “We request the State government to review its decision. In the old pension scheme government employees were guaranteed an assured benefit from the government. The Supreme Court in its judgment stated that every employee has a right to pension after serving the government.

Under the new scheme fixed pension is not assured. Under the CPS employees contribution and the matching payment from the government is added to a fund. Pension under the new scheme depends on the income accrued from the fund.

The government introduced the new scheme to reduce the burden on the exchequer as part of the liberalisation process. The scheme is indifferent to the welfare of the employees,” said the JAC leaders. The JAC leader said the new pension scheme depends purely on the vicissitudes of market and adversely affects the employee who after years of service stands to lose his retirement benefits.

The JAC leader recalled that they had organised a round-table meeting October 4 last year. A number of teachers and employees organisations participated in the meeting and adopted a resolution to request the government to replace the CPS with the old pension scheme.