Rajasthan: Unified Pension Scheme Implementation Becomes Challenging For Bhajan Lal Government

The implementation of recently announced Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) has seemed to have become an uphill task for the Bhajan Lal Sharma led BJP government in Rajasthan. 

The state was first in the country that had reintroduced Old Pension Scheme (OPS) during the Congress regime and all the government employees in the state are now under OPS. The employees unions have stated that the implementation of UPS will not be accepted. The opposition Congress is also backing the employees.

As the Maharashtra has announced to implement UPS, the Rajasthan was also expected to take a decision on this in the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday, but no announcement was made regarding this. 

Jogaram Patel, the law minister of the state said that the government is working on this and will soon take a decision. “The government is serious on this issue and will decide soon after working on all the aspects,” said Patel. 

Meanwhile, the state president of All Rajasthan State Employees Federation (United) Gajendra Singh has warned the Bhajan Lal government not to consider implementing the UPS in Rajasthan.

“If the government has to take any decision in the interest of the employees, then it can be done only with the continuation of the Old Pension Scheme in the state. Apart from this, any decision whether of the Central Government or the State Government will not be accepted by the employees of Rajasthan,” said Gajendra Singh. 

There are around 10 lakh employees in the state. Around half of them were already under OPS and rest who were recruited after 2004 were covered under the New Pension Scheme, but now they also are under the OPS as the previous Congress government in the state led by Ashok Gehlot reintroduced the OPS in 2022 for all the employees including the autonomous bodies, although, the previous government could not get back the pension fund under NPS as the central government had outrightly refused the demand. 

The challenge to implement UPS has a political aspect also. The by-election of six assembly seats are also round the corner and government cannot afford to annoy the state government employees as they are a major vote bank and part of the machinery that will conduct the elections. 

Looking at this, the opposition Congress is also backing the employees. Former CM Ashok Gehlot who revoked the OPS has demanded the state government to clear its stand on UPS.  In a social media post Gehlot said" for the benefit of the employees of Rajasthan and to safeguard their future, our government had implemented the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) in 2022. Now the Government of India has introduced the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS), after which there is confusion among the state employees. They want to know whether the government will continue OPS or implement UPS here. The state government should immediately clarify the situation on this so that the employees can work well without any stress."

The numerics 

As per the government report, there are a total of 5.52 lakh pensioners in the state and the pension burden of the government was Rs, 25381 crore in the fiscal year of 2022-23 which is expected to reach up to Rs 38336 crore by the fiscal year 2035-36.