VIJAYAWADA: The meeting held between the Group of Ministers (GoM) and representatives of several employees’ associations to discuss the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) at the Secretariat on Wednesday, concluded without arriving at any decision.
The GoM comprising Ministers Buggana Rajendranath (Finance), Botcha Satyanarayana (Education) and Audimulapu Suresh (Municipal Administration), insisted that the employees’ association leaders consider the Guaranteed Pension Scheme (GPS) proposed by the government which is better than CPS.However, the employees’ association leaders asserted that they are against any decision except restoring the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
The GoM offered more facilities to employees under the GPS. Apart from announcing a minimum pension of Rs 10,000 to employees, the GoM promised to extend accidental and health insurance cover to employees and also pension to spouses in case of death of an employee.
Speaking to mediapersons after the meeting, Botcha Satyanarayana made it clear that though Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy promised to abolish the CPS and restore the OPS, the government came to a conclusion that the OPS could not be implemented as it would put an unbearable burden on the State exchequer.
“We came up with the GPS as it is better than the CPS. We are also ready to extend more facilities under the GPS, besides providing legal sanctity for it. We will once again discuss with the leaders of employees’ associations to arrive at a final decision,” he asserted.
Stating that they gave an assurance of cancellation of CPS hastily, he said the government fulfilled 95% of promises made in the YSRC manifesto and the CPS abolition is among the 5% of unfulfilled promises. Informing that the employees appealed to the GoM to lift the cases registered against them, Botcha said the issue will be resolved after taking the matter to the notice of the CM.
Asserting that the government is affectionate towards the employees, Government Advisor (Public Affairs) Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy said they came up with the GPS only to benefit employees. Stating that dialogue is the way to resolve any issue and the government is ready to come up with improvisations to the GPS, he invited suggestions from the employees’ leaders in this regard.
Leaders of various employees’ associations said the ministers informed that the government could not implement the OPS.“However, we said the GPS is not at all acceptable to us and insisted that the OPS be restored as promised by the CM,” the leaders said.
Asserting that the CPS abolition is their life and death issue, the leaders said as Jagan asserted that he would only promise what he can deliver, they believed him and demanded that the promise to abolish the CPS should be fulfilled at any cost.