Members of the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Teachers’ Organisations (FAPTO) have demanded that the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) be repealed and the Old Pension Scheme be restored.
At a media conference on June 21 (Wednesday), federation’s State committee chairman N. Venkateswarlu and secretary general Ch. Manjula said they were opposed to the Guaranteed Pension Scheme (GPS) proposed by the government as an alternative to the CPS, alleging that the new initiative would benefit the corporate firms only.
They said that the employees wanted the Old Pension System as a part of which they did not have to contribute any money. “It is ridiculous on the part of the government to thrust on us the GPS which mandates monthly contributions by the employees,” they said, adding that the government had not been paying Dearness Allowance (DA) to its employees now, but was talking about paying Dearness Relief to the pensioners.
11th Pay Revision Committee
They accused the government of handling the 11th Pay Revision Committee (PRC) in a shoddy way. The government implemented it without making it public and said that it would pay the arrears of ₹7,382 crore in instalments over four years. They said that the employees and teachers were not ready to believe the government’s claims on immediate constitution of the 12th PRC.
The federation leaders found fault with the G.O. 117, which, they said was responsible for shrinking the number of teacher posts in the State, leading to the merger of schools ‘on the pretext of under-strength’. They demanded the repeal of the G.O. and ‘allow survival of primary schools’.
Their other demands include immediate steps to relieve teachers of non-teaching duties, regularisation of the services of contract workers and implementation of the minimum time scale for outsourced staff based on 2022 PRC.
Meetings planned across State
As part of their agitation, the federation leaders have submitted representations to the district Collectors and MLAs. Meanwhile, the federation has planned public meetings across the State between June 25 and July 9. On June 25, the federation meetings will be organised in Vizianagaram, West Godavari and Kurnool districts. Similar programmes will be held in Visakhapatnam, Krishna, Chittoor, East Godavari, Anantapur and Nellore districts and in Guntur, Kadapa, Srikakulam and Prakasam districts on July 2 and 9 respectively.
