The Union cabinet on Sunday gave its nod to the UPS, which will benefit 2.3 million central government employees, offering an assured pension of half of their average monthly basic salary drawn over the 12 months preceding superannuation for those completing at least 25 years of service.
“The state governments should implement the scheme to extend the benefits to government teachers and municipal workers,” Mishra said.
The beneficiary numbers under UPS will rise to 9 million if state governments adopt the scheme.
Starting April 1, 2025, the new scheme will offer a minimum pension of ₹10,000 a month and will be inflation adjusted.
Mishra thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for addressing the concerns of government employees who joined the service after January 1, 2004, and are now eligible to get at least 50% of their salary as pension under UPS. Those on the current National Pension System (NPS) will have the choice of shifting to the UPS. The NPS is a defined contribution scheme that was rolled out on January 1, 2004. It earns employees a retirement corpus and annuity depending on their contributions.Mishra observed that for some retired employees, the pension amount under NPS varied between ₹800 and ₹3,000, which was inadequate to cover the day-to-day expenses. In JCM, the employees’ side led by Mishra had been pushing for restoration of the old pension scheme (OPS).
Pointing out the benefits of the UPS, Mishra said while employees continue to contribute 10%, the government’s contribution has increased from 14% to 18.5%.
