Walking on the path of her opponent Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, BSP supremo Mayawati has promised to restore the old pension scheme for government employees and teachers in Uttar Pradesh, if her government is voted to power in the Assembly election.
Ms. Mayawati, who does not release any election manifesto unlike other parties, made the announcement at a rally in Auraiya district.
“Our party is not at all in agreement with the new pension scheme (National Pension Scheme). This is why if the BSP government is formed, the old pension scheme will be implemented,” Ms. Mayawati said.
According to estimates, between 11 and 13 lakh government employees would be impacted by the decision to restore the OPS. Employee unions have over the past couple of years staged several dharnas and run movements demanding the restoration of the pre-2005 old pension scheme, which they say offers them more social security than the market-based NPS.
The old pension scheme was catapulted into an election issue after Mr. Yadav promised to restore it, if he won the election. His poll-promise received a positive response from employee unions.
The NPS was introduced by the Centre from 2004 and then implemented by the State government on April 1, 2005. Under the OPS, a retired employee received a defined amount as pension calculated as 50% of the salary at retirement plus other hikes and benefits. The employee gets an assured amount, irrespective of how much contribution was made towards their pension over their working life. Under the NPS, the pension value depends on the corpus saved by the employee at the time of retirement and is subject to rise or fall in investment value.
The BJP government has indicated that is in favour of the NPS. The government through Chief Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra on January 28 held a review meeting with office-bearers of some employee unions and tried to convince them that the NPS was comparatively more beneficial for them than the old scheme.
In Auraiya, Ms. Mayawati said if voted to power, she would constitute a commission to resolve the demands of all government employees including those from the educational department who had staged dharnas or hartals under the BJP rule. Ms. Mayawati also promised that “fake cases” lodged against such protestors would be withdrawn after a proper probe.
