Quoting a WhatsApp message from a central government officer, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar Thursday said that “the country would turn bankrupt by 2030 if the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) is implemented”. “Nobody can implement it without (the clearance of) Parliament,” he added, while underlining that it was Manmohan Singh, “an economist”, who as Prime Minister kicked off the New Pension Scheme (NPS). For the past year, this has been the consistent stand of Khattar on the OPS. He has stuck to it despite some recent election losses for the BJP, in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls and Maharashtra MLC seats, blamed on the Opposition's promise to voters to bring back the old scheme; and despite neighbouring Rajasthan (Congress-ruled) and Punjab (ruled by the Aam Aadmi Party) already going back to the OPS. But with the countdown to the 2024 Assembly elections starting, there is some misgiving in the BJP ranks about Khattar's "rigid" stance, especially as its rival Congress is promising to restore the OPS if voted to power. Incidentally, in Maharashtra, at the last minute ahead of the MLC polls, BJP Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, moderated his stand on the OPS, though it proved too little, too late. Haryana government employees too have been insisting on restoration of the OPS. Leaders of various unions put the number of government employees and pensioners in the state at approximately 5.5 lakh. This number has a further multiplier effect, given their families, relatives and friends. Further, the employee unions in Haryana are a significant pressure group, who have in the past led several successful agitations. One of them, the Sarv Karamchari Sangh, in fact, has been seeking a return to the OPS ever since the new one was launched in Haryana by the then Congress government with effect from January 1, 2006. Stepping up pressure, a Pension Bahali Sangharsh Samiti, a body comprising government employees, has announced a protest in Chandigarh on February 19. Its “research cell” head Ramesh Kohar says: “Currently, of the 2.64 lakh government employees in Haryana, only 90,000 are entitled to the OPS. The rest - recruited after January 1, 2006 – fall under the new regime.” Arguing against a return to the OPS, Khattar said in March 2022 that the Haryana government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda must have had some considerations when it introduced the NPS in 2006, adding: “An employee starts getting pension after around 30 years of service. In this way, the burden of pension is increasing. What will happen after 30 years must have been taken into account at that time. In Haryana, as much as Rs 8,400 crore annually goes for pension, and at this rate, the amount will be nearly Rs 40,000 crore after 12 years.” Contesting this, Pension Bahali Sangharsh Samiti president Vijender Dhaliwal says: “The figure of Rs 8,400 crore for pension also includes the annual contribution of Rs 2,700 crore being made for the NPS by the state government and the employees jointly. The additional financial burden of the OPS for government employees will be felt only after 2035 because the employees recruited after 2006 will start mainly retiring that year. But there is already a corpus of Rs 15,000 crore under the NPS and it will increase further in the coming years. This corpus will be enough to take care of the OPS for all employees.” Hooda, the main challenger to Khattar in the state, has admitted that the NPS was implemented during his government, but says decisions can always be changed, especially when the stakeholders feel they are being deprived of benefits. He gives the example of Rajasthan, where it was the BJP government led by Vasundhara Raje that had opted for the NPS. “But now the Congress government led by Ashok Gehlot has reversed that decision.” A senior BJP leader admits the issue may have repercussions for the party in the 2024 polls. However, he adds: “We have our own calculations. In 2024, the parliamentary polls will take place (in April-May) ahead of the Haryana Assembly elections, due in October. We are very hopeful that the BJP will win the parliamentary polls and it would have a major impact on the outcome of the Assembly polls as well.” The leader adds: “There is no doubt that government employees are comfortable with the OPS instead of the news scheme. But we have to keep in mind the fiscal health of the state too. The examples of the (struggling) economies of Sri Lanka and Pakistan are before us.”
