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| Government Employees Not Happy With NPS | | |
Azad Hussain
Life is the combination of dependence and self-sufficiency. A person through almost half of his lifetime remains financially self-sufficient and during another half, he depends on others. Broadly, the life of a person can be divided into three stages as childhood, adulthood and old age. A person learns the basics of life and ways of earning during his childhood up to the age of adulthood and all along this period he relies completely on parents for every kind of support. As soon as he reaches to adulthood he begins to chose some livelihood to earn. As he gradually attains the old-age, he again become depend on others. It is not only the money which he needs. But he needs care also. However If he would be financially self-sufficient, it reduces the financial burden on his family for his medicines, healthcare etc.
Though Almighty is there to provide food and other necessities to everyone but at times some people face so many difficulties during the days of their old age mostly in terms of their financial requirements. The entrepreneurs, businessmen, and other crafts men already manage to save some amount from their earnings to fulfil the needs at their old age. Likewise government employees get a pension after retirement and get their post-retirement life secured. That is also the reason why people run after government jobs.
However from last more than a decade, the government employees have been pushed to wall after the introduction of NPS by the government. The Old Pension Scheme, which was sufficiently fetching a good pension to the government employees after retirement, was replaced with the New Pension Scheme (now called National Pension System), which is not satisfactory for employees. It was introduced with effect from January 1, 2004 for central government employees except those in defence and from January 2010 for the employees of Jammu and Kashmir. With the advent of NPS, the employees got extremely disappointed. Because there is gulf between the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) and NPS in terms of post-retirement benefits.
Unlike OPS, new pension scheme is contributory pension system in which government employees need to make their own mandatory contributions every month from their salary to the NPS for pension purpose. While employees contribute 10 per cent of their Basic Salary and Dearness Allowance (DA) every month, the government also makes equal contributions. Although employers’ mandatory contributions may exceed 10 per cent, but the excess contributions will be taxable. NPS is market linked, if the companies to which contribution is shared would progress in the market, the contribution would automatically gain the value, if unfortunately the companies don't show any progress the contribution would not show any increase in the value.
At the time of retirement of an NPS employee, the subscribers may use the accumulated pension amount under the scheme to purchase a life annuity from any life insurance company empanelled by Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA ) apart from withdrawing a part of the accumulated pension amount not more than 60% as lump-sum, if they choose so. However the the amount withdrawn from accumulated amount is taxable, which is another drawback of NPS.
Those NPS employees who got retired, have termed NPS a crude joke with them. Because they were expecting sound pension after retirement but received unsatisfactory pensions after retirement. Which they claim are comparatively very low, not enough to support their post retirement life. While going through news paper reports, some retired government employees from out side the Jammu and Kashmir with less service in their respective departments have claimed that they receive pension between Rs 2000 to Rs 3000 per month under NPS. Which is almost nothing keeping in view the present market. Now if an employee would be the single earning hand in his/ her family, how could he manage to run the family after his retirement.
For old pension scheme government had a responsibility to allocate funds from it's own exchequer for the pension to pensioners, they introduced NPS to save the resources spent on pensioners. However the question is that why those employees who spent their whole pre-retirement age to serve the government are left at God's mercy after their retirement.
National Pension System (NPS) is a voluntary, defined contribution retirement savings scheme designed to enable the subscribers to make decisions regarding their future through systematic savings. It is not specifically for government employees only but every citizen can opt for this scheme. However, the only difference is that 10% contribution from government as matching share is given to government employees, which is not given to other subscribers of the scheme.
In Jammu and Kashmir there were thousands of employees like Rehbr-i-Taleem and Rehbar-i-Zirat who were engaged before January 2010 but were regularised after after January 2010 the cut off date for OPS . Though those employees where aware of the fact that they would have less service in their departments but they had joined government service with the hope that at least they would get a person after retirement, but all in vain. Same holds true with those unregularised employees after their regularisation, who are near to their retirement age but are yet to be regularised. If regularised what would be their pension after retirement under NPS, is a point to ponder.
Now all the government employees working under NPS want that the old pension scheme should be restored. There are various NPS employees unions working for the restoration of old pension scheme. But National Old Pension Restoration United Front (NOPRUF), headed by it's national president BP Rawat, is running a countrywide campaign to restore OPS. It has its units in almost every state and UT of the country. All NPS employees need to support the campaign for restoration of OPS. If OPS would be restored it would secure not only the future of lacs of employees but would secure the future of their families too. |
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