Previous Pension Scheme guarantee lacking from Congress manifesto
New Delhi: In its manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unveiled Friday, the Congress has manufactured no mention of the previous pension plan (OPS), signaling a re-think in the occasion about the electoral efficiency of the go.At the Congress Operating Committee assembly past thirty day period, in which the draft manifesto was talked over, numerous leaders, which includes Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, had demanded the inclusion of the OPS.
Chidambaram — the finance minister in Dr Manmohan Singh’s authorities — had lauded the New Pension Plan (NPS) that had been rolled out by the Vajpayee govt in 2004.


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Soon after releasing the manifesto Friday, Chidambaram explained, “it is not lacking as this sort of. It is really significantly on our minds.”
He said that the authorities has appointed a committee headed by the finance secretary to evaluate NPS and the demand for OPS, and to “find a way in which the objectives of OPS can be financed by a funded pension scheme”.“This indicates that the govt has appear all over to the level of check out that while OPS shipped gains to the pensioners, NPS manufactured it sustainable,” he added.Unless the report of the committee is gained and then reviewed, “It will be untimely to acquire a stand on the OPS-NPS controversy,” reported Chidambaram.ThePrint had earlier reported that OPS was considered for the manifesto only just after a number of leaders including Priyanka insisted on the scheme. It was not a aspect of the draft manifesto released in the Congress Performing Committee past month.
A leader experienced mentioned at the time, “The OPS had arrive up for dialogue in the conferences of the Manifesto Committee, but it was not put in the draft manifesto geared up by the Committee. Mr. Chidambaram, for a person, is genuinely cautious of it.”The Congress had first promised OPS in the Himachal Pradesh assembly election in 2022 and it was cited as just one of the aspects that had contributed to its victory. The Congress produced this promise in the 2023 Karnataka and Telangana assembly election when its governments in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan applied the OPS. The occasion, even so, finished up shedding in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.Even while the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA authorities introduced the NPS in 2004, Congress heavyweights Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram had previously lauded the new plan. Now, Congress leaders imagine that opposing NPS will assault the party’s have legacy without yielding a lot of returns.Inside of the social gathering there are sections that do not favour the implementation of the OPS.
Very last year in December, Praveen Chakravarty, head of the party’s facts analytics section, had told ThePrint, “There was under no circumstances any proof that the Old Pension Plan is this major game changer in the elections… The OPS is unjust and not truthful for the reason that it taxes a large bulk to shell out for a little minority of privileged persons.”Chakravarty is also a component of the 16-member manifesto committee.(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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