Some employees getting less pension under NPS
STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has assured the State Legislative Assembly that the State government will take up the issue of some of its employees, mostly retired teachers, getting meagre amounts as pension with the Central government.
Raising the issue in the House on Monday, AIUDF MLA Imdadul Haque Choudhury said, "Some of the retired employees of the State government have been getting very less amount as pension under the National Pension Scheme (NPS). We demand the State government to roll back to the former pension scheme, instead of the NPS."
In his reply, Sarma said, "There are a few such cases of retired employees, mostly teachers, getting meagre amounts as pension. The NPS was implemented by the Centre in 2004 according to which 10 per cent of the total salary of an employee will be deposited in his/her pension fund. The employer (here the State government) will also deposit an equal amount to the pension fund of the employee. If an employee retires after 30-35 years of service, he/she gets a respectable amount as pension. However, there are a few employees, mostly teachers of venture schools, whose jobs were provincialized at the fag-end of their service in 2013. Such employees have very little amounts deposited in their pension funds, and as such they are getting meagre amounts as pension. The then State government should have taken up the matter with the Centre at that time, but it didn't. But now, we're going to take up the issue with the Centre with the plea for amendment to the NPS.
"Taking that instance, a section of State government employees feels that at the end of their service career they'll also get such meagre amounts as pension. This is not the case."
Sarma further said, "From 2005-2010 only the employee's contribution was deposited in his/her pension fund. However, the State government didn't deposit its own ten per cent share. Now we've deposited the amount.
"However, after that the Centre amended the NPS and hiked the employer's contribution to the pension fund to 15 per cent of the employee's salary, but kept the employee's contribution unchanged. Thus a total of 25 per cent of the employee's salary is now deposited in the pension fund of an employee. Now the gratuity of the employee will also be a good amount."
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