A clip of Education Minister of MP, Inder Singh Parmar is doing rounds on the internet. Talking about the old pension scheme he claimed that it was discontinued by former PM Manmohan Singh’s government.
In the above video, he can be heard saying, “I think that about the old pension, the whole population of the country should think about it. Because it is not the decision of the BJP. However, the decision to discontinue the old pension arrangement was taken at the time of Manmohan Singh Ji’s Sarkar.” {English Translation}
Fact Check
On keyword search, the DFRAC team found an article in livemint published on 26th September 2022 with the title, “New pension scheme vs old pension scheme. Which is better?” It was mentioned in the article that, “The old pension scheme was discontinued by the BJP-led NDA government in December 2003. The new pension scheme came into effect on April 1, 2004.”
Similarly, acczording to another article by abplive, The Old Pension Scheme – OPS was abolished by the BJP-led government in December 2003 under the rule of the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee. After this it was replaced by National Pension Scheme-NPS. NPS came into effect on 1st April 2004.
The Manmohan Singh government was formed in 2004. He held the office of PM from 22 May 2004 till 26 May 2014.
Furthermore, a new pension scheme was introduced in 2004. This national pension scheme (NPS) allows government employees to decide where they want to invest their money by contributing regularly to a pension account throughout their career. According to a press release of PIB on the ‘Restoration of Old Pension Scheme’, “NPS is now regulated under PFRDA Act, 2013 and regulations framed there under by PFRDA and Department of Financial Services. As per information furnished by the Department of Financial Services:”
Conclusion
Therefore, from this fact check it is clear that the claim of Inder Singh Parmar that it was discontinued by former PM Manmohan Singh’s government is not correct.