The Kerala chapter of the IAS Association has written to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), saying that IAS officers should be exempted from the new rules. pension scheme It was made applicable to All India Services (AIS) officers who joined the service after 1 January 2004.
In a letter addressed to the DoPT secretary, the association’s president B Ashoka and secretary MG Rajamanickam said the notification issued by the finance ministry on December 22, 2003 – introducing the NPS – covered only the central government service and not the IAS, which is an all-India service created as per Article 312 of the Constitution. The association has raised the issue after the Center circulated a draft among states to frame rules for NPS for AIS, to ensure regulation of conditions on a par with central services.
The association also pointed out several violations in sections of the All India Services Act, 1951, which was enacted to regulate the recruitment and service conditions of enlisted officers in AIS. The association pointed out that as per Section 3 of the Act, the Center should make rules for regulating the recruitment and service conditions of AIS officers by notification in the Official Gazette. But, no such notification was given in the official gazette to start NPS for AIS.
Further, in complete disregard of Section 3(1), no consultation was held with the States before changing the service conditions of AIS officers and introducing the new pension system with retrospective effect, which is again in violation of Section 3(1A) of the Act.
NPS, which is a contributory pension scheme, was introduced for AIS (IAS, IPS and IFS officers) who joined the service after 2004. There are more than 100 IAS officers in the state who are now covered under NPS. In Kerala also, the government implemented NPS for government employees who joined service after April 1, 2013. Out of about five lakh government employees in the state, 1.4 lakh are covered under NPS.
Although the Satish Chandra Babu Committee, appointed on November 6, 2018, to revisit the NPS had already submitted a report to the government on April 30, 2021, no decision was taken on the report or its contents were disclosed subsequently.