OPS... they did it again!
Congress has been abolition of the National Pension System (NPS) and return to the old pension scheme (OPS) in the three states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh, where it came to power. Its newer state government in Karnataka is considering the same step, but has yet to take it. Is better sense prevailing?
The new Congress election manifesto makes no mention of OPS. Answering questions, P Chidambaram said OPS was very much on the party's mind, but it was waiting to react to the report of an official committee on the issue. Does that suggest second thoughts?
In Jharkhand, the coalition government of which Congress is a part has gone back to OPS. Seeing the populist trend, even some BJP leaders in other states have said OPS needs reconsideration. Sorry, it doesn't.
A recent RBI study found that a shift to OPS from 2023 onward would provide a small, temporary relief to state governments. But the additional pension burden would soon mount and eventually cost a spectacular 450% of the NPS burden. There cannot be a stronger indictment of such a short-sighted policy.
Reversion of Congress to OPS was denounced in 2022 by none other than Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the party's former deputy chairman of Planning Commission. He declared, 'Bringing back the old pension scheme is one of the biggest 'revdis' (populist giveaways) that are now being invented.'
Manmohan Singh, Congress PM from 2004 to 2014, had also castigated OPS as a fiscal millstone. During his term, he had ushered in NPS, and boasted about it as
