Modi government’s big step before the budget, UPS will be implemented from April 1… know its benefits

New Delhi: The country’s general budget is about to come and on February 1, 2025, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present it in Parliament. Earlier, the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a big step and officially notified the Unified Pension Scheme i.e. UPS for central employees. Along with this, it has also been announced from which date this new pension scheme will be implemented.

UPS will be implemented from April 1, 2025
The gazette notification of the Unified Pension Scheme has been issued by the government. Let us tell you here that the central government launched UPS in August 2024 last year, balancing the Old Pension Scheme and the National Pension Scheme, which provides guaranteed pension to government employees after retirement, which is helpful in ensuring their financial security.

On which employees will it be applicable?
According to PTI, this unified pension scheme for central employees covered under NPS has been notified by the government on Saturday, January 25, 2025. The unified pension scheme will be applicable to such central government employees who come under NPS i.e. National Pension Scheme and choose the option of UPS under it. According to the gazette notification, central government employees can either choose to take the UPS option under NPS or continue NPS without the UPS option. It has been clarified in the government notification that people choosing UPS will not be entitled to any other policy concession, policy change, financial benefit.

This much burden will increase on the government treasury
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav had shared all the information related to it while announcing UPS on 24 August 2024. According to this, in the New Pension Scheme, the employee has to contribute 10 percent of his basic salary and the government contribution in this is 14 percent. After the implementation of UPS from 1 April 2025, this contribution of the government will be 18.5 percent of the basic salary of the employee. According to this, the additional burden on the government treasury will be Rs 6250 crore in the first year.

What is special in UPS?
23 lakh employees of the Center will get the benefit of Unified Pension Scheme, under which 50 percent of the average basic salary of 12 months of the employee will be given for life after retirement. For this, the employees will have to serve for at least 25 years. From time to time, the benefit of dearness relief will also be added to this fixed pension. After the death of the employee, 60 percent of the employee’s pension will be given to any eligible member of the family, whereas if an employee has served for only 10 years or more, then there is a provision to give him a minimum pension of Rs 10 thousand.

Talking about other major benefits of the new scheme, apart from gratuity, a lump sum amount will also be given on retirement under UPS. This will be calculated as 10th part of the basic salary and dearness allowance for every 6 months of service of the employees. The amount of gratuity in this can be less than that of OPS.