Thaindian News

Bhopal, May 31 (IANS) The Madhya Pradesh government Saturday announced that it would introduce a centralised pension scheme for its employees. The decision was taken at a state cabinet meeting held under the leadership of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

The Directorate of Pension would be declared Central Pension Treasury and its office would be upgraded.

Since the Pension Fund Regulatory Depository Authority (PFRDLA) has appointed the National Security Depository Ltd (NSDL) as central record keeping agency and the SBI Pension Fund Ltd, UTI Retirement Solution Ltd and LIC Pension Fund Ltd as pension fund managers, the state government would also appoint these institutions accordingly.

After the introduction of the centralised pension system, a government contribution, equal to the contribution of the employees, would be deposited with the Directorate of Pension.

The cabinet also accorded sanction for payment of five percent dearness allowance (DA) to the government employees from June 2008 and six percent DA from July 1, 2008 and also pension relief to pensioners.

With this move, the rate of DA being paid to the government employees and dearness relief to the pensioners would be 41 percent from June 1 and 47 percent from July 1 respectively.

This benefit would also be given to the teachers cadre constituted by the state government in April 2007. The payment of DA and dearness relief would entail an additional financial burden of Rs.6.98 billion annually on the government.