300 UT employees to get old pension

Following a recent communication from the Centre, nearly 300 employees of the UT Administration will now be able to avail of the benefit under the Old Pension Scheme.

Notably, employees had been demanding to make the switch back to the Old Pension Scheme for the last few years.

According to the letter sent by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to UT Chief Secretary Rajeev Verma, the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules will now be applicable in place of the National Pension System for the employees recruited against the posts/vacancies notified on or before December 22, 2003.

The employees who were recruited on or after January 1, 2004, were kept in the National Pension Scheme. However, since the process of most of these recruitments had started before January 1, 2004, the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules will be applicable for those employees as well.

In other words, the change will be also applicable to the employees whose recruitment process for the respective posts had begun before January 1, 2004, even if they joined after the cutoff date. Following demands from employees, the UT administration on June 26, 2024, sent a letter to the MHA. The MHA stated that UT may adopt the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare order dated March 3, 2023, and complete the entire process within the next three months.

Chandigarh