Employees under Unified Pension Scheme to get gratuity: Jitendra Singh

Government employees under the Unified Pension Scheme will get benefits of gratuity, Union Minister of State in the PMO and Personnel Jitendra Singh said today.

He said the move addresses a significant demand of government staff and brings parity in retirement benefits.

“The new provision reflects the government’s commitment to ensure social security for all categories of employees under the National Pension System," Singh said.

He added that for the first time since Independence, 1,500 redundant colonial era rules had been done away by the government.

“One rule said if the government office toilet is not clean, the attendant can be jailed. Another was the signature of gazetted officers for attestation of certificates," the minister said, speaking on 11 years of the BJP-led NDA government.

He said UPS employees will now be eligible for retirement and death gratuity benefits, as per the provisions of the Central Civil Service (Payment of Gratuity under National Pension System) Rules, 2021.

Singh also flagged amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act to punish bribe givers as much as bribe takers as a major reform and said changes in examination laws had been brought to prevent paper leaks.

“We are here to punish the racketeers, not the students,” the Minister said flagging as revolutionary Aadhar-based introduction of the digital life certificate for pensioners and family pension reform to include divorced and separated daughters as eligible if the petition for divorce was filed before the death of the parent.

“At present divorced daughters have to wait for the case to be settled to be eligible for pension. That is no longer the case. Also working women who could so far only nominate their spouse or partner can now nominate anyone she wants," Singh said, adding that the government had also introduced maternity leave for stillbirth cases.

Open to lateral entry: Singh

Singh today said the government was open to and had not abandoned the lateral entry move, which was put on hold ten months ago amid concerns over reservations. He said the lateral entry provision existed before the NDA government took charge in 2014. “The most famous example of Dr Manmohan Singh who rose to become PM. We only introduced an objective system of lateral entry recruitments by routing it through the UPSC," he said.

India