Govt employees demand restoration of old pension scheme

Central and state government employees protested here Sunday, demanding restoration of the old pension scheme.

Hundreds of employees staged a dharna outside the Hamirpur office of local MP Anurag Thakur and raised slogans against the new pension scheme.

The employees said if the old scheme was not restored then they would be compelled to launch a nation-wide stir.

Bikram Singh Rana, a national-level leader of the employees association, alleged the new scheme was launched to help big companies and not for the benefit of the employees and that all employees were against it.

The employees demanded all parties declare in their manifestos that the old pension scheme would be reverted back to.

Senior BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal, who was in Hamirpur during the dharna, addressed the employees and assured them that he would take up their issue with the central and state governments. He said their case was justified.