Central, state employees join 'restore old pension' campaign on Twitter

A large number of central and state employees on Friday joined a Twitter campaign to demand restoration of the old pension scheme, an organisation representing them has said.

The restore old pension' campaign is being spearheaded by the National Movement for Old Pension Scheme (NMOPS), a federation with over 13 lakh government employees as its members.

Since January 2004, the central government has imposed a new pension system NPS for government employees recruited after December 31, 2003 to replace the one under the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972. The new pension scheme does not provide the guarantee of minimum pension on last basic salary drawn by the employees, said Manjeet Singh Patel, the president of the NMOPS Delhi unit.

Among other issues, the NPS or National Pension Scheme does not have the provision for inclusion of revised dearness allowance in the pension, he said.

Whereas, the old scheme allowed employees to get benefits of revision of dearness allowance announced twice a year, said Patel, who works with the Delhi government.

The NMOPS is against the share-market-linked pension system for the central and state government employees, he said.

In order to ensure that our demands reach the corridors of the power in the government, a campaign was launched today on Twitter. As part of this campaign, a large number of central and state governments employees put up a picture of either them or their family members holding posters with restore old pension' message on them, Patel said.

He said the restore old pension' campaign was trending on the Twitter during the day with more than two lakh tweets and retweets.

The Finance Ministry has recently ruled out a proposal by the NMOPS seeking modification in the NPS, saying its corpus is invested in a prudential manner to ensure optimal returns and suggested that changes will be financially untenable.

The NMOPS, formed to oppose the NPS system, is working actively in more than 16 states and union territories, including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, among others.