SP promises restoration of old pension scheme

By Akhilesh Tripathi

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday assured the restoration of old pension scheme for the State employees if the party is voted to power in Uttar Pradesh. The new gambit is all likely to add to the woes of the BJP as the Yogi Government which discontinued the scheme, had shown its back to the State employees agitating for the restoration of the scheme.

Uttar Pradesh has 20 to 22 lakh employees, a considerable number of them being Government school teachers. They had launched an agitation demanding restoration of the old pension scheme a few months ago. They had held demonstration and sit-in before the State Legislature.

Akhilesh said he had held consultations with the financial experts in the State who have found the scheme feasible. The BJP Government had brought a new manual through which the employees appointed after April 2005 were denied this support and security on retirement. Akhilesh told a delegation of the Rajya Karamchari Sanyukt Parishad (State’s employees union) that restoration of old pension scheme would be part of the SP’s poll manifesto. According to Mr. J. N. Tiwari, there were 10 lakh such employees in the State who had joined the Government workforce after April 2005.

The BJP Government had discontinued the monthly pension scheme of the state employees. The new pension scheme by the Yogi government is linked to the share market and therefore has uncertainty attached to it.