Guwahati: NPS Employees to Join ‘Black Day’ Stir on Feb 1 against Unified Pension Scheme

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The All Assam Government NPS Employees’ Association is going to participate in the February 1 ‘black day’ called by the SAKP (Sadou Asam Karmachari Parishad).

The association’s president, Achyutananda Hazarika, said, “The Old Pension Scheme (OPS) is the economic and social security shield for the retirement of government employees, teachers, and workers. The National Pension System (NPS) was introduced for central government employees from January 1, 2004; teachers and employees of Assam from February 1, 2005; and bank and insurance employees from April 1, 2010, instead of OPS, during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Needless to say, NPS was introduced as a contributory and market-based pension system by ending all the guaranteed benefits of pensions and family pensions under OPS. The Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) was announced by the ruling party on August 28, 2024, due to uprising demands to abolish this system and retirement protection through re-inducting the OPS scheme for all classes of government teachers, employees, and workers. The official notification issued by the Central Government on January 25, 2025, which was supposed to bring relief to the teachers, employees, and workers, has led the teachers, employees, and workers of the government apparatus to another fear. We note with deep concern that this UPS is a combination of NPS and headless OPS only, and it has ultimately watered down the hopes of workers, teachers, and employees. The immediate announcement by the Chief Minister of Assam to implement this in Assam not only recognises the struggle for OPS but also paves a way for the solution of the problem.”

 Assam State Primary Teachers’ Association General Secretary Ratul Chandra Goswami said that the UPS scheme, announced after the momentum of the struggle of workers, teachers, and employees that shook the throne of Delhi during the last parliamentary election, is being touted as enabling employees to get pensions at a 50% rate like OPS. However, the gazette notification shows the futility of all the propaganda. This scheme is going to cheat the workers, employees and teachers once again, he said.

According to joint coordinators of the Joint Council of Trade Unions Assam, Garga Talukdar and Bhabendra Kalita, and All Assam District Administration Employees’ Union General Secretary Jayant Bhandar Kayashta, it is seen that UPS is a contribution-dependent and market-dependent system like NPS. The demand was the reintroduction of the contribution-free OPS system, which would provide guaranteed economic and social security. However, the government changed the name slightly and introduced UPS with the main features of NPS, they added.

“We have decided to intensify the struggle to restore old pensions to protect the retirement time of government teachers, employees, and workers in the state. We jointly call on the teachers, employees, and working community to make the ‘black day’ on February 1, 2025, a success as part of this struggle. We will soon decide to intensify other protests, Garga Talukdar said.

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