Old Pension Scheme is going to be implemented in Himachal on Saturday for NPS employees. New rules for old pension and GPF are being notified in the first or second week of this month. As soon as these are implemented, 1.36 lakh NPS employees will now get a double pension. Chief Secretary Prabodh Saxena has confirmed this.
This is happening because of the formula fixed by the Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu government to implement the old pension.
After the cabinet decision, the Finance Department has sent the draft of the Old Pension Rules to the Law Department.
A provision has been made in this regard, that the NPS employee will have to deposit the maximum share of the lump sum amount received on retirement to the state government. This is becoming 54 percent of the total money received by the employee under NPS rules.
This money is for the contribution of the state government to NPS. After getting this amount in the account, the state government will implement old pension to NPS employees, and in the future, they will not need to surrender any amount.
After this, the pension of the remaining amount of NPS will be given to the employee by PFRDA from Delhi and the state government will give the entire old pension of its share.
In this way, the formula of double pension is being imposed on every NPS employee. As far as the corpus fund is concerned, Himachal government is not creating any separate fund for old pension. That is, the Chhattisgarh formula is not being fully implemented in the state.
Behind this is the financial compulsion of the state government. Since Chhattisgarh is a revenue surplus state, it is possible to do it there. The State Government in Himachal uses Treasury, Wage and Means, and Overdrafts to run its business.
There comes a time once or twice in a year when there is no money in the treasury, yet the bank pays restrictive liabilities like salaries or pensions.
The state has to depend on loans to run its treasury. The loan is available at an expensive rate of interest and if the state government creates a corpus fund, the interest on this fund will be less than the loan.
In this situation also, it would not be prudent to create a separate fund. The state government is giving around 970 crores annually as NPS contribution. At present, the old pension will be paid from this.
This means that the state government wants to run the old pension completely on the treasury. How will the option be taken for this and what will be the format of old pension? This will be known only after the rules are notified.
Chief Secretary Prabodh Saxena said that in all the states which have implemented old pension, a double pension format is being prepared there. The reason for this is that the Government of India is not ready to return the money to the states and the money is coming back to the concerned employee’s account.
Even if the contribution is stopped midway, the NPS Trust is making the monthly pension for the amount that would have been lost. The double pension formula will be applicable in Himachal too.
He told that the notification of old pension will be released soon. Anyway, the bills for salary and pension are made only after the 15th.