Garhshankar, April 26: The Old Pension Preservation Front (PPPF), which is struggling for the restoration of old pension for NPS employees of the state, will hold protests in front of the offices/houses of cabinet ministers and MLAs of the AAP government on May 1, Labour Day; a meeting of the block committee was held under the chairmanship of teacher leaders Sukhdev Dansiwal, Balkar Singh Maghania and Rajdeep Singh to prepare for district-level protests. In the meeting, it was also decided to launch a major preparatory campaign to convey the message of the May 1 protests against the AAP government for refusing to implement the old pension notification to the employees of various departments.
Sharing the information of the meeting, Block Garhshankar leaders Vinay Kumar and Jagdeep Kumar said that the International Workers' Day celebrated on May 1 is a symbol of protecting the interests of the working class and the struggle against the predatory capitalist system. In the current world imperialist system, where imperialist countries are twisting the arms of developing countries and enforcing pro-corporate policies, the rulers of countries like India, instead of standing up to these imperialist policies, are further intensifying the plunder of the country's human and natural resources.
The functioning and direction of the current central Modi government and the AAP government in Punjab have proven to be only advancing imperialist policies. The misleading UPS scheme brought by the central government despite the huge opposition of the employees and the Punjab government moving towards implementing the UPS scheme by setting aside its own notification of the old pension made on November 18, 2022 are only a manifestation of the service being done for corporate profits.
He said that the notification of old pension has been pending for the last three years, not a single NPS employee's GPF account has been opened. But crores of rupees have been spent on false advertising of implementing old pension in the state. Apart from this, no decision has been taken regarding old pension in the fourth budget of the Vidhan Sabha, which is a big betrayal of the employees.
The leaders of the front alleged that the AAP government is implementing a repressive policy of suppressing democratic struggles by blindly torturing unemployed teachers and suppressing the farmers' agitation with police force. Taking inspiration from the glorious history of Labor Day in protest of the AAP government's breach of promise on the issue of old pension, voice will be raised in district-level dharnas to implement the notification of old pension.
Jarnail Singh, Ramesh Malkowal, Jaswinder Singh Jassowal, Kuljit Singh, Amarjit Singh Bangar, Satpal Kaler, Mandeep Singh, Sunita Kumari etc. were present on this occasion.