During Zero Hour of the state assembly session, Leader of Opposition Tika Ram Jully told the House that the Bhajanlal government would abolish OPS after the Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress general secretary assures Rs 1,500 per month, domestic gas cylinder at Rs 500 to women, loan waiver for farmers, free electricity to the poor and restoration of the Old Pension Scheme.
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.
Peeved by the non-implementation of the scheme, Congress MLAs accused the ruling BJP of insensitivity and indifference towards the state government employees
The state government passes a resolution to ask Centre to return Rs 80,000 crore under NPS.
A national convention of unions and associations of Central and state government employees is being held in the National Capital on Saturday to decide the future course of action against the government.
NPS was a saviour of the sinking public finances and all state governments expect West Bengal have adopted the NPS one by one, the last being the then left-ruled state of Tripura in 2015. NPS had restored some discipline in public finances and contributed to making the states generate surpluses in their revenue accounts. Now the backward march will certainly take the states and the nation to the brink of financial disaster
Addressing a delegation of NPS employees here on Wednesday, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said a formula has to be evolved so that the pensioners could get regular and respectable pension.
On Tuesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi targeted the Saffron Party making the elderly dependent by abolishing the old pension scheme.
“It is the policy decision of Congress that OPS will be implemented in the state,” said State Congress President Pratibha Singh while talking to media persons here on Monday.
