Perturbed by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s announcement that the government would promulgate an ordinance on the Guaranteed Pension Scheme (GPS), as a substitute for the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), members of Andhra Pradesh CPS (Contributory Pension Scheme) Employees Association are gearing up for a ‘Chalo Vijayawada’ protest on September 1 with a slogan “Why not OPS”.
“This is downright deceit. The GPS being offered by the government as an alternative to the Old Pension Scheme has no guarantee. The YSR Congress government is ruling with an iron fist. This is unacceptable,” said associate president of the association M. Das.
Speaking to The Hindu on Tuesday, Mr. Das said the association would continue its fight till the government reverted to the Old Pension Scheme. “The ‘Chalo Vijayawada’ protest will be followed by a series of ‘Vote for OPS’ agitations across the State,” he said.
The anger echoes among members of Andhra Pradesh Secretariat CPS Association. “Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, during his election campaign, promised the employees that he would bring back the old pension scheme, and included it in his party’s election manifesto. After four years now, he is talking about an ordinance on GPS,” said association president Rajesh Kotla and vice-president Napa Prasad.
The association leaders alleged that the GPS was being thrust on them without holding any discussions on it. “The employees are not even aware of what comprises the GPS,” said Mr. Prasad, pointing out that it was difficult to believe the assurances of the YCP government on GPS, as it did not implement even the CPS in toto.
The association leaders argued that when States like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh could completely revert to the Old Pension Scheme under Article 309, Andhra Pradesh should not have any problem in following their example.
After a prolonged stalemate over implementation of pension scheme for the government employees in the State, the government expressed its inability to implement the Old Pension Scheme and instead, offered to replace it with the GPS. According to it, under the GPS, the pensioners would receive 50% of their last drawn salary as pension as against 20.3% of their basic salary under the CPS.
Under CPS, the employees who joined service after September 1, 2004, would contribute 10% of their basic salary towards the pension under the CPS, while the government would release a matching amount. The employees could withdraw 60% of the corpus after retirement, while the remaining 40% would be annuity investment. As it would be linked to the market, there would be fluctuations in pension.
Under the GPS, the government promised that the pensioner would get 50% of the basic in the last drawn salary as pension, while his or her contribution would be the same as 10% of the basic. The Dearness Relief (DR) announced by the Union government once in six months would be extended to the GPS pensioners.
Leaders of the AP Joint Action Committee (JAC) Amaravati have agreed to GPS but insist that the government show them the draft before the ordinance is finalised. “We made it clear that we would want to see the draft before its finalisation. But the Chief Minister’s announcement on Monday took us all by surprise,” says that JAC chairman Bopparaju Venkateswarlu.
