Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has implemented the Old Pension Scheme in his State. The Congress party has been promising reversion to the OPS in other States as well. In Karnataka, too, plans are afoot. Next year, the party might promise the same across India ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. If the Congress party comes to power, lakhs of crores are going to be spent by different States on pensions for retired government employees.
What is wrong with the OPS? A Hindi media report gives the example of Shahstri Chintaram of Sundar Nagar in HP. The government employee is going to receive a monthly pension of Rs 27,500 by opting for the OPS. Under the New Pension Scheme, he would have received only Rs 1,770. At this rate, lakhs of government employees are going to eat up half of the State's revenues in the future. The future generation is going to foot this enormous bill.
Critics are lamenting that the Congress party is in pursuit of dangerous vote-bank politics in trying to woo the votes of government employees. "Congress has got the perfect plan to bankrupt the country," angrily tweeted a Twitter user.
"People must know that if you give retired employees more than they were promised (under the NPS), you are taking tax rupees away from infrastructure, defense, space, schools, health, and development (it happened in Karnataka under the present Siddaramaiah government). Politicians rely on ignorance to do this," tweeted economic commentator and author Harsh Madhusudan. "No one seems to understand that it's plain immoral to give assured pensions to just one section of organized laborers," wrote Devil's Advocate on Twitter.
