Restoration of the Defined benefit
pension scheme to all Central Government employees & Officers irrespective
of the date of their entry into Government service is the paramount amongst all
issues and demands of the Central Government employees & Officers. The
struggle against the New contributory pension scheme introduced by the
Government in 2004 must be incessant till the Government agrees to withdraw the
same and restore the defined benefit pension scheme for all civil servants in
the country.
The Contributory pension scheme was the
product of the neo-liberal economic policies pursued by the successive
Governments that came to rule since 1991. It was conceived, formulated and
imposed at the instance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
combine to ensure free flow of funds to the corporate entities to enable them
to maximise profits.
AIDTOA, CCGGOO,CCGEW and no doubt the
All India State Government Employees Federation & others realised right at
the beginning its pernicious impact and demanded its withdrawal. The very
purpose of the new scheme was not to arrest the financial outflow of the
Government as has been made out both by the Government and the IMF but only to
help the corporate to access easy funds. Never had been such a naked attempt in
the past on the part of any Government to compel the employees to subscribe to
a fund whose benefits to the subscriber were not defined.
In the beginning, a section of intellectuals in the society, the
rulers, a predominant segment of the people’s representatives, the top echelons
of the bureaucracy; even some trade union leaders and their organisations
eulogised the scheme projecting the never-existant benefits to mislead the
workers and the public at large. While presenting the proposal before the
Parliament, the Government in fact misled the house to inform them over the
benefits the Government might reap due to lesser financial outflow for meeting
the pension entitlements of the Civil servants.
When
we opposed NPS, the then UPA Government stuck to its position and introduced
the PFRDA bill in the Parliament and ultimately they could get it legislated
with the support of the BJP which was in opposition then. In the background of
the well reasoned submissions made by us and others the Government appointed
Committees and Commissions to go into the matter, which had been loaded with
self serving bureaucrats. Most of these commissions sang what the political
masters wanted to hear except the one appointed by the 6th CPC.
Dr.Gayatri’s report was categorical that the
Government will have to bear in fact additional financial burden for the next
35 to 40 years due to the introduction of the New Contributory pension scheme.
The bureaucrats also began to realise the reality later. The employees, nay all
subscribers, to their dismay found that the new Pension system is in fact a No
pension system. The oft-repeated argument that it was necessary to arrest the
accelerated financial outflow from the exchequer was established to be false in
the face of Dr. Gayatri’s report.
Crores of rupees from the State Treasury and
the poor employees’ contributions went to enrich the corporate houses through
the stock market and mutual funds. The young employees, who were recruited
after 1.1.2004, who were compulsorily made to be the subscribers of the New
Contributory Pension scheme found fault with not only Government but some of
the leaders of the Trade Union movement of Central Govt. Employees. In sum,
this is the present scenario.
What All India DRDO Technical Officers
Association declares is to fight against this new scheme. It is an
uncompromising war to ensure that the present contributory pension scheme is
scrapped lock stock and barrel and the erstwhile defined benefit pension scheme
is brought back to cover all Government employees.
