Demanding that the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) be scrapped, All India State Government Employees Associations’ Federation General Secretary A. Srikumar said the employees would organise State-wide protests if the Central and the State governments continued to implement it despite mounting opposition.
Addressing a meeting of a joint forum of employees of various State governments here on Saturday, Mr. Srikumar said the Constitution had guaranteed pension to the employees as a right but the governments were finding ways to evade their obligation to pay the pension in totality.
Capital markets
The CPS was one such scheme under which a portion of the hard-earned money of employees was proposed to be invested in the capital markets instead of making full payment of the pension post-retirement.
At the time of introducing the CPS from January 1, 2004, the Central government had promised that there would be no cut in the pension payable to the employees but it later took the policy decision to park a particular share of the pension in the markets that were prone to market volatility.
Despite repeated appeals, it did not consider the employees’ grievance sympathetically.
AP-NGOs’ Association president P. Ashok Babu said the States have pensioners’ money amounting to about ₹98,000 crore and the Central government still did not apply its mind to scrap the CPS. The States should revert to the old pension system in the interest of employees, he added.
A.P. and Telangana Central Government Employees’ Association chairman V. Nageswara Rao, Telangana NGOs’ Association president K. Ravindra Reddy and others spoke.
