Srinagar
In an announcement with far-reaching consequences, Peoples United Front Spokesman on Thursday said that if elected, the PUF government will scrap the New Pension Scheme and strengthen the social security net for state government employees and members of three All India Services, IAS, IPS and IPS, posted to J&K.
“As per the NPS, employee contribution from salary is matched by an equal contribution by the Government and at the end of the service the employee gets a pension from this fund which is managed by a central pension fund authority,”: said the PUF spokesman in a statement.
However, over the years there has been a serious lack of clarity as to the amount and duration of pension employees will get in future and employee associations have been complaining that NPS has compromised their social security, he said.
Peoples United Front Spokesman asserted that thousands of employees appointed after 2010 have approached the party with the request to take steps for revocation of NPS in its current format.
“It was in this backdrop and after detailed consultations with employee associations that PUF decided to take a stand on this and the step is expected to give hope of safe future to thousands of employees who are giving their best for the welfare of this state,” the spokesman said.
“Not only the state government employees but members of All India Services also who are serving in J&K will be benefitting with this initiative. All India Services pay rules are there but it’s the state government which pays their salaries so a mechanism will have to be found to ensure at-par treatment,” he said.
He said that officers from outside the state have often complained about lack of proper housing and education facilities for their families in the state and this needs to be addressed.
“It will bring back the dignity to government service and raise the morale of government employees,” the spokesman said.
“We have to create more jobs in the private sector. But we can’t make the government sector less attractive by denying social security to employees. The pension has to be there. If we want youth to prefer private sector because of the dearth of jobs in government service, we have to first create adequate employment opportunities there,” added the spokesperson.
“J&K has not seen adequate industrial development and private sector investment over the years. Government is, therefore, the biggest employer. But when SRO 202 was brought in it was a serious injustice with youth who wanted to get government employment. There are better ways of fiscal prudence than denying the educated youth their right to dignified livelihood and cutting their salaries below the minimum wage and taking away the pension. Scrapping SRO 202 will be a part of this dignity initiative,” he said.
PUF will massively focus on ‘livelihoods’ for all to tackle the rising unemployment and give social economic and political justice to people of J&K.
