Report of North Western Railway Employees Union
Various organizations and associations of employees have come together to fight for the purpose of restoring the old pension scheme of employees recruited in Central, State, Public Sector Undertakings, Autonomous Bodies, Educational Institutions on or after January 1, 2004. As per the decision taken at the Joint National Conference held on January 21 in New Delhi, a joint forum of key functionaries of trade unions and associations associated with railways, defence, postal, RMS, state employees, teachers, public undertakings, roadways, corporations etc. has been formed in Rajasthan.
A meeting of “Old Pension Scheme Restoration Joint Forum” was held on 08/02/2023, in which Convenor Mukesh Mathur, Co-Convenor Vinod Mehta, Ram Singh, Rajendra Meena, Siyaram, S.I. Jacob, Mahavir Sihag, B.M. Sunda, Rajnikant Sharma, K.S. Ahlawat, Mukesh Chaturvedi, Saurabh Dixit, Basant Awasthi, Maliram, Begraj Koth, Vinod Meena, Jitendra Chauhan, Mukesh Meena, Mukesh Meena and many other prominent officials were present.
It was decided in the joint forum meeting that from Rajasthan, between February 10 and 20, an appeal signed by more than 3 lakh people will be sent online to the President. For this, more and more youth will be contacted in various districts, stations, units through Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur railway division headquarters and they will be connected to this campaign. Demonstrations will be held at various units on February 21. Rallies will be organized at the district level on March 21. Meetings will be held at various units on April 21. On May 21, a procession will be taken out at the district level involving family members. The rally will be held in the capital at the state level on June 21. A huge rally will be held in Delhi during the monsoon session in July-August. Even after this, if the Central Government does not take positive action, then the future course of action will be decided in the national NJCA meeting in September.
In the meeting, various office bearers of Railway Employees Union, Labour Union, SC ST Association, OBC Association, State Employees Federation, Income Tax Employees Union, AIDEF, Power Corporation Union, Teachers Union, RMS Union, NFPE, Gramin Dak Sewak Sangh, Confederation etc. said that employees who have served for 35-40 years should be guaranteed pension equal to 50% of their salary after retirement. They said that in the post-retirement examples of the New Pension Scheme, pensions have been fixed at 5-8% of the final drawn salary, which is insufficient for the post-retirement needs. There is also no provision for dearness relief as it is there in the old pension scheme. 18% GST will also be levied on investment of 40% deposit received after retirement. He said that the central government has a responsibility to provide social security to the employees, so the decision to restore the old pension will have to be taken by the government. Various leaders said that if the central government does not take the decision to restore the old pension scheme, then the employees will respond to it by exercising their voting right in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.