The Congress on Friday released its manifesto with its focus on the five ‘pillars of justice’. In its manifesto, the party focussed on cash transfers for women, employment opportunities, and caste census. The ‘Paanch Nyay’ or five pillars of justice in the Congress manifesto included the ‘Yuva Nyay’, ‘Naari Nyay’, ‘Kisaan Nyay’, ‘Shramik Nyay’ and ‘Hissedari Nyay’.
But sadly, the Congress party missed mentioning the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), which was part of its manifesto in state elections of Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan.
While the party launched the manifesto, many of its leaders seemed unaware of the OPS finding no mention in the poll manifesto. Till the very last meeting of Congress’s manifesto committee, the majority of leaders were of the opinion that the Old Pension Scheme would be mentioned, sources told India Today TV.
Speaking about OPS, Congress manifesto committee head and former finance minister in the UPA regime, P. Chidambaram said: “It’s not missing, it’s in our head.” He said that the party has not included the issue in the manifesto as the government has recently formed a committee to look into the provisions of New Pension Scheme (NPS).
“We will review the situation after the committee outcome and move ahead according to that,” he said.
Chidambaram said that the Congress would wait for a government report on the New Pension Scheme (NPS) to review and clear its stand.
“Please remember the development which has taken place in the last four months. The government has appointed a committee headed by the finance secretary to review the NPS, the demand for OPS and to find a way in which the objective of OPS can be financed by a funded pension scheme. This means the government thinks that while the OPS delivered benefit to pensioners, the NPS made it sustainable’ he added.
While OPS offers a fixed pension equal to 50 per cent of a government employee’s last salary, without requiring any contribution from them, NPS or National Pension System asks employees to contribute 10 per cent of their basic salary, with the government contributing 14 per cent. The eventual pension amount depends on the market returns of the invested funds.
Four states, including Himachal Pradesh, have implemented OPS in some capacity, the Karnataka government has said it would do so.
Experts have said that OPS increased the state’s fiscal burden exponentially and there was an increasing demand to pension reforms.
Last year, the Reserve Bank of India cautioned on reversion to the old pension scheme by some states, saying it poses a major risk on the “subnational fiscal horizon” and would result in accumulation of unfunded liabilities in the coming years for them.
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The observations in the RBI’s Report titled ‘State Finances: A Study of Budgets of 2022-23’ comes in the backdrop of Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh becoming the latest state announcing reverting to the Dearness Allowance (DA) linked Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
