Govt rejects pay panel's pension proposal

NEW DELHI: The government has rejected the Fifth Pay Commission''s recommendation to restore commuted portion of pension after 12 years instead of 15 years now.
Based on the commission''s recommendations, several pensioners associations had raised the demand for restoration of the earlier norms.
Under existing norms, a pensioner can take part of his pension as a lumpsum — the commuted portion — while the rest has to be drawn as monthly income.
This lumpsum can presently be drawn after 15 years of retirement instead of the 12 years recommended by the Fifth Pay Commission.
SSI minister Vasundhara Raje said the recommendation and the demand had been examined by the government and after taking into account various factors including financial implications, the government decided not to accept it.
Acceptance of the Fifth Pay Commission’s recommendations would amount to bringing forward the government’s pension liabilities, which would adversely impact the fiscal deficit in the current year.
However, Raje denied that a similar recommendation was also made by the Supreme Court.
In a related question, the minister added that though the department of pensions was a nodal agency for the formulation of pension policy for Central government employees, pension payments were completely decentralised.
In view of this, the department did not centrally maintain data relating to number of pensioners who had commuted one-third portion of pensions and whether they had got the benefits of the restoration or not after the expiry of 15 years.
The minister was responding to a question seeking details on pensioners who had commuted one-third of pension.