New Delhi. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday accused the Congress of spreading misinformation and said the recently introduced Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) is a new scheme and will not replace the National Pension Scheme (NPS).
He said, “This is not a U-turn. It is different from OPS (Old Pension Scheme) and NPS (National Pension System). It is clearly a new package.” He said that the recently announced UPS is a better pension scheme and most government employees will be satisfied with it.
Sitharaman said that UPS has been designed in such a way that it fits in every calculation and there is not much burden on the government. She hoped that most of the states will adopt UPS as it has many benefits for the employees. Last week, the Union Cabinet approved the introduction of a unified pension scheme for government employees.
On the Congress’ allegation that the government has taken a ‘U-turn’ on the pension scheme, the Finance Minister said that the government has improved the pension scheme and this is not a U-turn. He said that nowadays the Congress makes comments without extensive study, which was not the case earlier. Defending his previous decisions, such as the steps to restore indexation benefits on long-term capital gains tax, he said that this is not a U-turn but a change.