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KOHIMA — Hundreds of government employees from across Nagaland gathered outside the Nagaland Civil Secretariat in Kohima for a two-hour peaceful protest demanding the repeal of the National Pension System (NPS) and the reinstatement of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
The peaceful dharna was organised by the Nagaland National Pension System Government Service Employees Forum (NNPSGSEF) in solidarity with the All India State Government Employees Federation’s (AISGEF) national ‘Scrap NPS. Restore OPS’ strike.
Moanungsang Jamir, President of NNPSGSEF, said they decided to have a peaceful dharna instead of a strike in order to avoid any untoward incidents.
Jamir said that the association submitted a representation to the state government for the restoration of OPS in September last year, but there has been no response to date. Another representation was submitted on Friday demanding the same, he said.
Stating that Sikkim has recently rolled back the NPS, he expressed hope that the state would consider the matter and restore the OPS at the earliest.
The Nagaland government implemented NPS in 2010, and all employees hired after that date are covered by the scheme. There are currently over 33,000 NPS employees in the state.
Jamir explained that under the scheme, a 10% NPS deduction is made from each employee's basic salary plus DA every month. However, the accounts of at least 15,000 employees in the state are ‘nil.’
While the government has assured that money is there but not reflected in the account, he expressed doubt about ‘where the money goes after deducting it from the salary,’ and held the government responsible for the “mismanagement of funds.”
“If all the MLAs and ministers are taking OPS, even after they are elected right now, what about our employees who have been working for a long time? After 2010, we are still in NPS while they are taking OPS. If OPS is good for them, then what about us? We are working for the government; we deserve OPS,” he added.
“We are not against the government, but we are just against the policy," the general secretary of NNPSGSEF, Imnasenla Pongener, said.
Meanwhile, T Chubayanger from the Confederation of All Nagaland State Services Employees’ Association (CANSSEA), labelled the NPS as “defective.”
The present system is not good for the employees, otherwise, why would the whole country protest it, he said, suggesting that the association gather support from all the districts.
It is not about fighting with the government but placing their grievances with the government in a democratic way, he said, adding that the state government would sense the need for restoring OPS by taking the example of Sikkim, which became the first state in the north-east to roll back the contentious scheme.
In the representation addressed to the Chief Secretary, the association contended that the government employees appointed after January 1, 2010 “involuntarily” opted for NPS as it was ordered by the State Government.
“This has led to harming the interests of the employees whose benefits have been deprived from the government by not granting any pension after retirement, even after giving their whole lives for the development/progress of the state,” it maintained.
The association also put forward a list of comparisons between the OPS and NPS, one of which was that the OPS is a lifetime guarantee, while the NPS is fully based on the stock exchange/share market, which has no guaranteed returns and does not provide social security.