Karnataka govt to reconstitute committee studying new and old pension schemes

Belagavi: Karnataka Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda on Thursday informed the Legislative Council that the state government was reconstituting the single member Additional Chief Secretary committee to study the pros and cons of new pension scheme (NPS) vs the old pension scheme (OPS).

Responding on behalf of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, he said, the government will be reconstituting the panel from the existing one member to a three-five member committee.

Stating that the process will be completed in the next 10 days and a time frame will be fixed for the committee to submit its report, he said that the chief minister has even directed the officials to visit states which are reverting to understand how the implementation is happening.

The state government was aware of the slow pace of the existing committee to study and submit the report to the government, Byre Gowda said, and added that the chief secretary had held meetings with the concerned officials in this regard and identified a technical concern.

Noting that in states such as Rajasthan, which had passed the order to revert to the OPS, failed to implement it because of technical concerns, he said, with states already depositing their money under NPS, it is locked with the Central provident fund and needs to be returned to the respective states.

"With the Centre having not given any response on returning the money to the states....it is a complicated issue," he said, while adding that, however, it is not impossible to get the issue sorted as the Centre, too is reviewing the NPS.