Pensioners demand arrears, to start agitation against state govt

Sushil Goyal

Sangrur, June 8

State government pensioners are up in arms against the Punjab Government for adopting an “indifferent attitude” towards their long-pending demands. There are about 3.5 lakh government pensioners of various departments, including police and electricity, in the state.

Three DA instalments pending

Their main demand is implementation of factor 2.59 as recommended by Sixth Pay Commission for fixing the pensions of pensioners. Other demands include release of three pending instalments of the Dearness Allowance (DA) to the tune of 12 per cent, increase in the medical allowance from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 per month, implementation of cashless medical scheme, release of pending pension arrears of Sixth Pay Commission for the period from January 2016 to June 2021.

As the state government has not accepted and fulfilled their long-standing demands so far, government pensioners are now planning to chalk out a programme to get their demands accepted.

Chief spokesperson of Punjab State Pensioners Confederation, Raj Kumar Arora, said here today that the confederation was going to hold a meeting on June 12 at Pension Bhawan in Ludhiana to discuss the demands and chalk out an agitation programme as state government has not been hearing their voice even after ruling the state for more than two years.

The demands of the pensioners include release of three pending instalments of the Dearness Allowance (DA) to the tune of 12 per cent, increase in the medical allowance from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 per month, implementation of cashless medical scheme, release of pending pension arrears of Sixth Pay Commission for the period from January 2016 to June 2021.

Arora said that their main demand is implementation of factor 2.59 as recommended by Sixth Pay Commission for fixing the pensions of pensioners. State government had fixed their pension from January 2016 by adding 113 per cent DA into their basic pension and 15 per cent increase on total of the both components (Basic pension and DA) which is equal to factor 2.45 while they demanded addition of 125 per cent DA (which was on January 1, 2016) into their basic pension and 15 per cent increase on the total of both components, which is equal to factor 2.59, he added.

It is pertinent to mention here that instead of implementing factor 2.59 for fixing the pensions, the previous Congress-led government had implemented factor 2.45 due to which pensioners have been reportedly suffering monetary loss every month.

He said lakhs of pensioners had been raising their voice for the past several years to get their demands fulfilled but state government had not been hearing their voice. In such a situation, many government pensioners had already died without availing the benefits of the pending demands, he added.