HYDERABAD: Stating that their pensions have not been revised for the last 24 years, the Singareni Retired Employees Welfare Association has urged the Centre to initiate immediate measures for their upward revision.
While the salaries of regular employees are revised from time to time based on the report by the Pay Commissions, the pensions of the retired employees of coal mining companies have remained the same. This is against the existing norms that pensions for every three years should be revised.
A contributory pension scheme called Coal Mines Pension Scheme, 1998, was introduced for retired employees in the coal sector by the then BJP-led NDA govt in 1998. At the time of its inception, it was considered a revolutionary measure to provide robust social security to coal employees and workers but it had not lived up to its billing.
According to Dandamraj Ramchander Rao, president of Singareni Retired Employees Welfare Association, they have been writing to all the authorities concerned from the Prime Minister to their previous employer besides staging protests. He said that there was no response from the government. He said that the government’s inaction has been affecting as many as 4.5 lakh retired employees.