‘Chalo Vijayawada’ protest by teachers’ association for Old Pension Scheme on September 1

VIJAYAWADA: At a time when all the employee associations in Andhra Pradesh have reportedly supported the State Government's decision to come up with an ordinance to implement the Guaranteed Pension Scheme (GPS) in lieu of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), leaders of teachers' associations are strongly opposing it and are planning to intensify their agitation.

On Tuesday, the Andhra Pradesh Group of Ministers (GOM), consisting of Buggana Rajendranath Reddy, Botcha Satyanarayana and Audimulapu Suresh, Government Advisor (Public Affairs) Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, Chief Secretary Dr KS Jawahar Reddy held talks with the leaders of employees associations at the Secretariat in Velagapudi on modalities of the GPS.

Leaders of the AP NGOs Association, AP Revenue Services Association, AP Government Employees Association, AP Secretariat Employees Association and CPS Employees Association attended the meeting. While the leaders of teachers' associations boycotted the meeting and stated that the GPS was not at all an alternative to the OPS.

In Vijayawada, the leaders of Andhra Pradesh United Teachers Federation (APUTF), State Teachers Union (STU) and Andhra Pradesh Teachers Federation (APTF) on Wednesday convened a meeting to discuss the future course of action to be followed and strongly opposed the GPS. APUTF president N Venkateswarulu alleged that the State Government had brought the GPS to benefit the corporate forces and said that they won't accept any pension scheme except the OPS.

Venkateswarulu extended his solidarity to the ‘Chalo Vijayawada’ protest to be taken up by the teachers' associations on September 1, 2023 for ‘Why not OPS’. “We are fighting against the Government, but not against employee associations. But if they want to deceive us, they will not be tolerated. We are urging the Government not to allow us to take another serious agitation against the GPS,” he said.

The APUTF president alleged that the State Government was unilaterally trying to implement the GPS without releasing any draft and informing the regulations in it to the teachers associations. According to the directives given by the Central Government, the OPS should be implemented to over 11,000 employees employed before 2004. “It is unfortunate that the State Government has utterly neglected the directives by the Central Government. Apart from that, around 3 lakh CPS employees are also appealing for the implementation of the OPS,” Venkateswarulu said.

STU president Sai Srinivas alleged that the State Government was deceiving the employees in the implementation of the GPS. The GPS draft regulations had not been announced so far and the GPS was not approved. APTF general secretary Chiranjeevi had appealed to other employee associations to extend their support to the ‘Chalo Vijayawada’ protest. “The employees situation in Andhra Pradesh has worsened and we are asking the Government to pay salaries on time. We will continue our agitation until and unless the State Government implements the OPS,” he said.