Old Pension System restored for State employees

KUNAL RAI

GANGTOK,: The State government on Friday notified the implementation of Old Pension System as per the demand made by State government employees.

“The State Government has decided to restore the Old Pension System with a view to bring the State Government employees appointed on or after 01.04.2006 under the provisions of the Sikkim Services (Pension) Rules, 1990, as applicable to the employees appointed on or before 31.03.2006,” reads the notification issued by the Department of Personnel (DoP).

Chief Minister PS Golay officially released the notification during the temporary employees Sammelan organised by the DoP at Rangpo on Friday.

Speaking on this notification, the Chief Minister said the regular government employees have been demanding restoration of the Old Pension System as they are not in favour of the New Pension System. “The past government made that mistake in 2006 by removing the Old Pension System and replacing it with the New Pension System. Our government employees made many representations to me and I had told them not to worry as we will restore the Old Pension System,” he said.

Golay added that some government employees are in favour of the New Pension System. If they want, they can stay under the New Pension System and others can go for their preferred Old Pension System, we have kept that option, he said.

Pema Doma Bhutia, president of the organisation demanding restoration of the Old Pension System, expressed gratitude to the Chief Minister and the State government for notifying the restoration of the Old Pension System. She added the Old Pension System is an additional benefit for the temporary government employees being regularized by the State government.

On Friday, the Chief Minister officially released the DoP notification wherein temporary government employees including OFOJ workers who have completed four years of service (December 31, 2023) are to be regularized.

Pema Doma expressed that the temporary employees under the government of Chief Minister PS Golay are fortunate as they are being regularized after completing just four years in service. In contrast, we had to struggle for 10-20 years for regularization of our services, she mentioned.

All Sikkim OFOJ Employees Association president Karma Sonam Bhutia shared that the temporary employees are overjoyed with the regularisation notification. We are confident that the regularisation process would be taken up in a fast-track mode as directed by the Chief Minister to the heads of departments and we all will get our memorandum at the earliest, he said.

Thousands of temporary employees attended the Sammelan at Rangpo.