NMOPS demands restoration of Old Pension Scheme

National Movement for Old Pension Scheme (NMOPS) president Dr. Manjeet Singh Patel on Thursday alleged that the National Pension Scheme (NPS) was a scam and demanded that the government revert back to the old pension scheme. NMOPS is the first and largest body of central, state and autonomous government employees who joined the service after January 1, 2004 and falls under NPS.
In March 2023, government employees spearheaded by NMOPS staged protest across the country asking the government to revert back to the old pension scheme and do away with NPS.
Addressing media persons at the Heritage here on Thursday, Dr. Patel said in the NPS system, money was totally in virtual and digital system similar to Bitcoin and other crypto currencies. Therefore, he said it would not provide any security to government employees during their time of retirement.
He said that five states including Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have already reverted back to the old pension scheme by scrapping NPS from their respective states while more than 10 States had formed committees to review NPS.
NMOPS president disclosed that the central government had also on April 6 formed a committee to review NPS.
In this regard, he appealed to the state government headed by chief minister Neiphiu Rio to look into this matter.
Dr. Patel said that the responsibility to look after 30,000 employees lay on chief minister while cautioning that they would resort to protests if they were not protected by social income security,
He said that more than 30,000 new pension scheme employees were investing 10 percent of their salary every month in National Security Depository Limited (NSDL) accounts known as Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN). NSDL Corporation Limited is a central record keeping agency, which manages all the data and the fund from NPS employees.
He observed that the money accumulated in NSDL for Nagaland state should be approximately Rs 5000 crore. However, he said data of only Rs 1200 crore was uploaded into the system.
He therefore questioned where was the rest of the money amounting to more than Rs 3500 crore for Nagaland had gone. “If the people are coming into services for 25 to 35 years and they are saving Rs 500 to Rs 2000 then where is the social income security for old age?” he asked.
Therefore, Dr. Patel said they were running a nationwide campaign with members from all the States except Tripura and Manipur.
He disclosed that more than 300 government employees who attended the recent meeting called by CANSSEA were shocked to learn about the missing money which was provided by reliable authorities.
Dr Patel said that NPS was neither providing old age social income security, gratuity nor not providing even guarantee on contributor employee because this total corpus was being invested in share market while share markets keep fluctuating every now and then.
He said this “scam” was being played by the corporate sectors and therefore government employees of all the States were demanding for pension guarantee, security of all pension guarantee.
Confederation of All Nagaland State Service Employees’ Association (CANSSEA) president, Dr Ilang, said they had learnt on April 15, 2023 that only 32,111 employees generated PRAN card, out of which only about Rs 1,300 crore had been uploaded into the portal.
In this regard, he asked the nodal department-treasuries and accounts where was the money of the employees?
According to CANSSEA president, the government had informed its employees that an amount of around of Rs 3500 crore from NPS was kept in “safe hands in a dedicated account”. However, he said that this was virtual money and the government should not let employees suffer or make the employees protest against the government. He said that pension was a right of the employees and not a bounty.
Dr Ilang said CANSSEA had appealed to the state government to bring back OPS, which was guaranteed earlier this year when the association held a protest.
He informed that at the national level, efforts were being made to pressure the Centre to scrap the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).
NMOPS Nagaland chapter president, Moa, informed that after he joined the service in 2011, about 10% of his salary was automatically deducted for NPS even before he obtained PRAN card.
He said this indicated that the amount was in the state treasury account and that the state government was not giving its 10% share of the money.
Out of about 40,000 government employees who subscribed to NPS, about 8,000 were still without PRAN card, he said.
NMOPS convenor Sudheer Rupji alleged that the money earned by employees were only covering up for the objectives of corporates instead of the employees under NPS.
Stating that the scheme was not transparent, he maintained that the government employees would only be supporting political parties that stand in support of rolling back OPS in the upcoming 2024 polls.