CHENNAI: School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi on Monday launched a sharp attack on AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami over the party’s renewed pitch for the restoration of the old pension scheme (OPS), questioning its “sudden concern” for government employees.
In a statement, the minister recalled that it was the AIADMK government that scrapped OPS in 2003, which he said had put the future of government employees at risk. He said Palaniswami’s recent remark that a decision on reverting to OPS would be taken “depending on the situation” if the AIADMK returned to power reflects “political anxiety”, with the Assembly polls drawing closer.
Anbil Mahesh said Chief Minister MK Stalin had honoured the DMK’s 2021 Assembly election promise to government employees by introducing a guaranteed pension scheme. In contrast, he alleged that the AIADMK had failed to implement a similar assurance made in 2016.
Referring to the protests by government employees in 2019, the minister alleged that the Palaniswami-led government had sought to discredit them by comparing their salaries with those of private sector employees. He said the assured pension scheme offered better benefits than the union government’s unified pension system, including pension calculation based on the last drawn basic pay and a guaranteed minimum pension even for employees with shorter service.