To win the confidence of the government employees and teachers in Chhattisgarh, the Bhupesh Baghel-led government is trying to implement the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) at the ground level. There are serious challenges on how much the Congress will benefit politically from this scheme because nearly half of the total government employees covered under the New Pension Scheme (NPS) are teachers, who have been merged under it in 2018.
During the Assembly elections held in 2018, the Congress had made promises of farm loan waiver and OPS for government employees and teachers. The loans of farmers have been waived and they have also received the benefits of various state government schemes due to which their overall economic condition has changed for the better. At the same time, the Chhattisgarh government has decided to implement the OPS for government employees and teachers for which they have also been given a choice to choose between the OPS and NPS till May 8.
Some conditions have been set by the Chhattisgarh government regarding the OPS under which the contribution deposited by the state government in NPS will have to be deposited in the government treasury upon retirement of the government employee, while his service period should not be less than 10 years.
Chhattisgarh Teachers Association president Sanjay Sharma says that in the state, about three employees are included in the Employees NPS, who have been appointed after 2003, of which there are about 1.5 lakh teachers who have been merged under this scheme in 2018. These employees will get the benefit of OPS after 10 years of service i.e. retirement in 2028.
At the same time, the state government has decided that the benefits of pension will be given only to those government employees whose service is 10 years and after that the pension will be fixed proportionally for the service, as well as 50 per cent pension of the total salary only after crossing the age of 33 years. In this situation, there will be a large number of teachers cadre employees who are doubtful about getting the benefits of pension.
The Central government gives full pension after 20 years of government service. Similar benefits should be given by the state government to its own employees as well. The tenure of teachers should be counted from their first appointment.
The Opposition BJP has slammed the Chhattisgarh government and Amit Chimnani, BJP IT Cell in-charge, says that the OPS has been brought by the state government only for political gains, because the government employees are intended to get the benefits of the OPS nearly 10 years from now. Those government employees who are appointed before 2003 will get the benefits of OPS.
Overall, the state government does not have to give the benefit of OPS to the government employees for the next 10 to 20 years because the employees who were appointed in 2003 will retire only after 2030, so it is creating this farce for political gains.
Sushil Anand Shukla, state Congress IT Cell president, says that the state government has decided to implement OPS in the interest of the government employees and has also given them a choice to choose between the OPS and the NPS. The reason cited by the Chhattisgarh government is that the Central government has deposits of more than Rs 17,000 crore in the NPS of the state government employees which is not being returned by it.
If the state had been given this amount, then all the employees would have got the benefit of OPS together, yet 98 per cent of the employees have opted to go with OPS.