GUWAHATI: Assam would go bankrupt if the National Pension Scheme (NPS) is replaced by the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed the Assam Assembly on the last day of the budget session.
Replying to a starred question from Raijor Dal member Akhil Gogoi during the Question Hour of the House, Sarma said, “Our pension bill is ₹1700 Crore and if we return to OPS, the government will crumble, there will be no way through which we can run the government. If we continue to do this, the economy will suffer within five years.”.
“Our monthly salary bill stands at ₹2800 crore to ₹3000 crore. In the next five-year pension will outstrip salary if taken to OPS as the life expectancy of people is increasing,” Sarma said.
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“There are a total of 4,34,454 government employees in the state, of which 1,75,998 are under OPS and around 2,58,456 under NPS. About 1.5 lakh of them were employed during the BJP regime,” Sarma claimed.
Young Employees have never protested the NPS. They will get much more than OPS after 35 years of service. New recruits are in favour of NPS, Assam will go with the Central policy, Sarma said.
“Only around 70 to 80 thousand employees whose services were regularized, will be affected in the OPS,” the Chief Minister said.
“The Central government has formed a committee to study the NPS-OPS. The Assam government has given a memorandum for assured pension. Even Kerala has made similar suggestions. Let us wait for the committee's recommendations,” he said.
Not satisfied with the Chief Minister’s reply, Congress members staged a walkout from the House. However, they joined the House once the question was over forcing Speaker Biswajit Daimary to pass a ruling that anybody who stages a walkout, has to tell the House for what duration he would stage the walkout.
“If you walk out from the Question Hour, you have to walk out for the entire Question Hour,” the Speaker told the Congress members.
Amidst the row, the Chief Minister continued and said, “It was then Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi who had implemented the NPS in the state.”
Countering the Chief Minister’s statement, opposition leader Debabrata Saikia said, “The NPS has been implemented in the country from January 1, 2004, during the tenure of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.”
CPI (M) MLA Manoranjan Talukdar said, “The Chief Minister said employees will get more money in NPS. If OPS is implemented, the government will go bankrupt in five years. However, the employees have not been able to establish confidence in NPS. We demand the cancellation of NPS and the retention of OPS.”
Notably. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had set up a high-powered committee to review the NPS for government employees in March 2023 and it was constituted in April 2023. The committee was tasked to look into the issue of pensions under the NPS concerning government employees and “evolve an approach which addresses the needs of the employees while maintaining fiscal prudence to protect the common citizens”.
The committee is yet to submit its report to the Central government.