Hyderabad: After the Ayutha Dharma Deeksha in Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s home constituency Gajwel on January 7 against the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), state government employees will hold a ‘Jana Jatara’ with three lakh employees on March 4 in Hyderabad to bring pressure on state government to restore the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
If the government still does not oblige, the employees will go on a ‘pen down’ strike, and an indefinite strike later.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the TSCPS Employees Union comprising representatives from all 31 districts. The union set a deadline of March 31 after which the staff would go on strike.
“The meeting passed a unanimous resolution stating that employees should not stop agitation programmes till the CPS is scrapped. We demand that the Chief Minister immediately convene an emergency meeting with officials and employees unions to discuss the measures that need to be taken to abolish the CPS and restore OPS,” union president G. Sthitaprajna said.
He added that employees from all departments including teachers have extended support to Jana Jatara on March 4 and the turnout is expected to be over 3 lakh.
He said the union would seek permission from the police to hold the rally; if it is turned down, it would appr-oach the High Court. The union had followed the same approach for the Gajwel meeting, he said.
He said the funds collected from employees and the government under CPS were being invested in stock market and employees and their family members were being subjected to mental agony by denying financial security after retirement or death with no guaranteed returns under CPS. This was not the case with the OPS, he said.
