Govt to bear university pension liability, pension fund order frozen

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Finance Ministry has frozen the order that a pension fund and a pension fund board in the universities need to be set up to provide pension and retirement benefits to employees and teachers. The order will be cancelled soon. At present, benefits including pensions are provided by the government as non-plan funds. It will continue.

The government had directed that 25 per cent of the salaries of the employees should be transferred to the pension fund within 10th of every month and 10 per cent of this can be set aside from the state grant and the remaining 15 per cent should be found by the universities from their own funds. 'Kerala Kaumudi' had reported that this would put the universities in a debt trap and the fees will have to be increased.

The order also directed to take low-interest loans from banks or government financial institutions if there is a shortage of money for pensions. Although there is a provision in the Universities Act, no pension fund has been set up in any university.

Order to pay pension, dearness allowance, dearness allowance arrears, DCRG, compassionate allowance, pension commutation, terminal surrender, family pension and pension reform arrears from the pension fund was cancelled. At the same time, the govt has not withdrawn the order requiring universities to bear the additional burden of pension reform from their own funds. The pension reform is to be implemented with retrospective effect from July 2019. Universities have withheld arrears due to the financial crisis.

Relief for students

Fees would have to be increased massively to increase revenue. This would have been a setback for ordinary students.

Employees were worried that pensions and benefits would go awry with the implementation of the pension fund.