Stating that the draft ordinance on the Guaranteed Pension Scheme (GPS) was replete with errors and ambiguities, the members of the Andhra Pradesh Secretariat CPS (Contributory Pension Scheme) Association on September 1 (Friday) said they fuelled apprehensions about their uncertain future, and reiterated their demand for restoration of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
In a letter addressed to the Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary, the association leaders said they had observed certain errors based on the briefing by the Principal Secretary (HR), Finance Department, on the draft ordinance on implementation of the GPS, at the meeting with the employees’ association on August 28.
They said that while the draft ordinance spoke about benefits such as 50% pension guarantee and provision of Dearness Relief (DR) to the retired CPS employees explicitly, it did not either clearly mention or spoke implicitly about the costs / conditions that would apply for the CPS employees for receiving the benefits.
Benefit-cost analysis
They said a benefit-cost analysis of the scheme was not possible without the mention of the costs. Moreover, specifying the benefits in the draft ordinance and the costs in the rules to be framed was absurd, they said.
They said it was evident that the government had intentionally not transferred contributions to the Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN) accounts of the employees in time.
March-2022 contributions were transferred to their accounts from March 2023 to August 2023, and the amounts deducted from their monthly salaries from March-2023 had not been transferred to the PRAN accounts so far and no interest was granted for the delayed deposits as per the rule book, they pointed out.
They said the inordinate delay in the transfer of funds to the employees’ accounts was a wrong precedent set by the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government, and the possibility of the future governments making it a practice could not be ruled out.
They said there was no clarity on annuity plan selection option to get maximum percentage of guarantee.
A pensioner should have the liberty to choose the best option at the time of retirement as there was no clarity on the quantum of funds they would accumulate in their PRAN accounts now, 20-30 years before retirement.
There was also no clarity if the government would provide minimum pension on par with the OPS employees and benefits such as Employees Health Scheme and accidental insurance, as projected by the government in the GPS, they said.
In the proposed ordinance, nowhere it was mentioned that the basic pension amount guarantee would be fixed based on the A.P. Revised Pension Rules, 1980. This may lead to ambiguity while dealing with individual pension cases, they said, demanding re-introduction of the time-tested Old Pension Scheme.
