Leaders of the Andhra Pradesh United Teachers’ Federation (APUTF) have called for an all-party meeting on January 28 in Rajamahendravaram on the issue of restoration of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
The APUTF has been opposing the government’s decision to implement the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) for those employees who joined service after September 2004.
Jagan’s promise
The federation leaders, in a release, recalled that following a State-wide protest by the government employees and teachers, the then TDP government, in the run-up to the 2019 elections, had said it would disburse only 50% of the pay towards pension. But, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who was the Opposition leader then, had promised to implement the OPS “within one week of coming to power,” they recalled.
“Now, after four years, he is offering us a third option, the Guaranteed Pension Scheme (GPS), as an alternative to the OPS,” the release said, and added that the employees and teachers were opposed to both the CPS and GPS, and vowed to continue their fight for restoration of the OPS.
The federation leaders demanded that all the political parties include the issue in their election manifestos.
‘Govt. autocratic’
Irked by the cancellation of permission given to them for staging a dharna on January 25 to highlight the problems of municipal teachers, the UTF leaders accused the government of resorting to autocracy.
In the statement, federation State president N. Venkateswarlu and general secretary K. S.S. Prasad questioned the right of the government to “trample on their democratic right.”
They said that APUTF had been staging protests at the local and district levels for the last two months, but the government remained indifferent to their problems, forcing them to call for a State-level dharna on January 25 in support of their demand that teachers working in municipal schools be given transfers and promotions, besides PF and other facilities.
They said the proposed State-level dharna on December 30 last was postponed after the government promised to address the problems. “Not a single problem has been addressed so far,” the APUTF leaders alleged, and sought to know why restrictions were imposed on their protest.
