Shimla
The Central Government has written a letter to the Himachal Pradesh Government to implement the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS). It is written in this letter that if the state government implements UPS, it will get financial assistance of Rs 1,600 crore.
This is the second time that the central government has written a letter to the state government in this regard. Earlier also, the state government had rejected this proposal. After coming to power, the Congress government led by Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu implemented the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) in the state, which benefited 1.36 lakh employees of the state.
However, in return, the central government imposed many types of financial restrictions on Himachal Pradesh, including reducing the loan limit and fixing it at Rs 6,600 crore.
Also, a limit of Rs 2,900 crore has been set for externally aided projects in 3 years, whereas earlier there was no limit for this. Not only this, after the employees moved from the New Pension Scheme (NPS) to OPS, about Rs 9,000 crore of their share is stuck with the Central Government.
Despite these restrictions, the present government is adamant on its decision to implement OPS. The state government argues that with the old pension, government employees can live their lives in a better way. Now it remains to be seen how the state government takes this proposal of the central government.
