Hyderabad: Over 1.32 lakh employees of the state government who are covered under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) are holding a huge rally, ‘Jana Jatara,’ along with their family members in the Exhibition Grounds, Nampally, on Sunday, demanding the abolition of the CPS and restoration of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
The TS state CPS Employees Union has organised the mega rally to bring pressure on the state government to scrap CPS. The state government denied permission to conduct the rally, but the employees association secured permission by approaching High Court.
TSCPSEU president, G. Sthitaprajna, said that this will be the first mega rally against CPS in the country, that the employees will be attending with their families. He said there are nearly 1.32 lakh employees in Telangana who are covered under the CPS who have confirmed their participation along with their families. Initially, this programme was scheduled to be held on March 10 at NTR Stadium. But the police department cancelled the permission granted at the eleventh hour.
Aggrieved by this, the president of the Union, G. Sthitaprajna, approached the High Court and the Court issued orders to the Commissioner of Police to give permission on April 15 at Exhibition Grounds.
In January this year, the TSCPSEU conducted Ayuta Dharma Deeksha at Gajwel, the home constituency of the CM, K.Chandrasekhar Rao, to bring the issue to the CM’s notice. Mr Sthitaprajna said the plight of the more than 260 CPS employees who died while in service was pathetic and the retired CPS employees did not get their dues from the government.
“The abolition of this scheme is in the hands of the state government only. Rescinding government order number 28 issued after the formation of Telangana State and implementation of the OPS is the only demand of the Union,” he stated.
