Punjab Cabinet approves implementation of old pension scheme
Darpan News Desk IANS, 18 Nov, 2022 02:07 PM
Chandigarh, Nov 18 (IANS) Eyeing Gujarat elections, the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government on Friday approved the notification for implementing the old pension scheme (OPS) in Punjab, directly benefitting more than 1.75 lakh government employees.
A decision to this effect was taken in the meeting of the council of Ministers held under the leadership of the Chief Minister here.
Disclosing this here today, a spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office said the government has approved the OPS for its employees currently covered under New Pension Scheme (NPS), fulfilling a long-pending demand of employees of the state.
This will directly benefit more than 1.75 lakh employees currently covered under NPS. In addition to this, 1.26 lakh employees are already covered under the existing OPS.
The scheme is aimed at safeguarding the future of government employees and recognising their contribution towards the state. In order to ensure that the scheme being introduced is financially sustainable for the exchequer in the future also, the government will be contributing proactively towards creation of a pension corpus which will service the pension in future to the beneficiaries of the scheme.
This contribution towards the pension corpus will be Rs 1,000 crore per annum initially and will gradually increase in future.
Besides, the current accumulated corpus with NPS is Rs 16,746 crore for which the state will request Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority of the government of India to refund this amount for effective utilisation at its end.
Addressing a gathering during at a state-level function to mark the martyrdom day of the Shaheed Kartar Singh Sarabha at his native village here, the Chief Minister said bestowing the Bharat Ratna award to Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Shaheed Kartar Singh Sarabha, Shaheed Rajguru, Shaheed Sukhdev, Lala Lajpat Rai and others will enhance the prestige of this award.
A Delhi Police team on Wednesday again visited the rented house, in south Delhi's Chhattarpur, of Aftab Ameen Poonawalla (28), who has been arrested for allegedly killing his live-in partner and chopping her body into 35 pieces for disposal. According to a senior police official, the police team, along with forensic teams, inspected the house again.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday interacted with several world leaders during the ongoing 17th G20 Summit in Bali, including US and French Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron, as well as his British counterpart Rishi Sunak. The Prime Minister's Office shared several photographs of his meetings with the world leaders.
For the second time on Tuesday morning, the police team took the accused Aftab Ameen Poonawala to the Mehrauli forest area to recover the remains of the body of Shraddha Walker which the accused chopped into 35 pieces. He was first taken to the area on Monday.
The body of a man, appearing to be in his early 30s, was found stuffed in a suitcase outside the railway station in Punjab's Jalandhar city on Tuesday, police said. The police reached the spot and found a red suitcase just outside railway station.
The bench noted that after its last orders in the matter, except two meetings of the Ghaggar Standing Committee, no concrete steps have been taken by the state governments on the recommendations made by the Central Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS), Pune.
