NATIONAL COORDINATION COMMITTEE
OF PENSIONERS ASSOCIATIONS.
13-C Feroze Shah Road,
New Delhi.110 001
Website: www.nccpahq.blogspot.com
Email. nccpahq@gmail.com
Dated: 23/11//2020
President: Com. Shiv Gopal Misra, 9717647594
Secretary General: Com. K.K.N. Kutty 9811048303
PRESS STATEENT
The NCCPA, the apex level
organisation of all Pensioners Associations and Federations in the country,
conveys their fraternal greetings to the working class including the
agricultural workers and Kisans who will be making the one-day general strike
on 26.11.2020 a grand historic action.
This strike action despite the serious pandemic situation of corona COVID-19
in the country is expected to elicit the participation of crores of Indian
workers, surpassing the earlier record. The very fact that the strike primarily
centres around the demand for the reversal of the ongoing neo liberal economic
policies makes it dear to the millions of Indian people, who love this country,
who want a self- reliant India to come about.
Every segment of the Indian working class has been targeted by the
present Government, the last and fierce being the new labour code. The
method adopted by this Government to get the seal of approval of Rajya Sabha
for the new enactment, which takes away the rights, privileges and benefits
enjoyed by the workers conferred upon them by the very same Parliament is
indicative of the despotic tenor of the governance of the present ruling
dispensation.
The 2019 electoral verdict obtained
employing the hate agenda and divisive policies is effectively being used to
ensure that crony capitalism is the cardinal principle of governance. Emboldened by that verdict, the Government has
been taking various steps which are totally anti labour in content and
character. The Kisans who are supposed
to be the backbone of Indian economy has also been attacked leaving with no
alternative for them except to tread the path of struggle. NCCPA notes with great happiness that many Kisan
organisations as also the Agricultural workers Union has lent support to this
historic struggle and are participating in this historic action. The coming together of the Kisaans and
workers, NCCPA, notes with great satisfaction is bound to be a great harbinger
to bring about a real and lasting change in the society.
The pensioner community, especially
those retired from the Central Government service received the most
unanticipated shock when the Government decided to deny the dearness relief to
them for 18 months from Ist January, 2020 to 1s July, 2021. The dearness compensation which was meant to
arrest the erosion of the real value of pension has thus been stopped. Read with the notification recently issued in
respect of changing the basket of commodities in the computation of the
consumer price index and switching over the base year from 2001 to 2016 one
genuinely apprehends whether the DR system will remain or not in future. The present ruling class had always been
opposed to the cost indexed wage system and once the same is denied to the
workers, undoubtedly the pensioners will have to follow. This apart, the reduction of rate of interest
effected on term deposits by the Government
has considerably reduced the income of the Pensioners as most of them had
chosen to invest their savings and retirement wealth in bank deposits. The
pandemic has made them immobile and the Government has made them virtual
prisoners in their own homes. They are unable to make the both ends meet with
considerable reduction in their income and the Government has chosen to impose
additional burden by denying them the dearness compensation, which they are
otherwise entitled. No special
consideration has been given to them either in terms of finance or in terms of
priority in case of hospital treatment.
Recently the Central Government has
issued an order covering all the employees of Public Sector Enterprises also
that their DA will be frozen from 01.10.2020 to 30.06.2021. This is another
serious attack. The Government was reluctant initially to extend the benefit of
revised pension to the pensioners of autonomous bodies. Many financial benefits that were provided to
them on par with the Central Government employees have been stopped on one
pretext or the other. The revision of
pension in the case of BSNL pensioners has been made to pend since 2017. The pensioners of the BSNL are denied the
medical reimbursement, which was in vogue as part of agreement. The revision of pension entitlement of Bank
employees especially those retired from the Punjab National Bank has not taken
place for years despite the fact that the Bank holds huge reserves as pension
fund. In the name of amalgamation of
banks, these pensioners are denied their legitimate rights.
The large majority of the Central
Government pensioners are denied medical facilities who stay in non-CGHS towns
and villages. Those who are affected by
the deadly disease of COVID-19 are to incur heavy financial burden, which is
not reimbursed by the Government. Almost
all private hospitals without exception charges exorbitantly for treatment of COVID-19
patients.
The facility to Senior Citizens
granted by the Indian Railways wherein their train fare was reduced by 40% and
50% respectively to gents and ladies had been cancelled in the name of
discouraging travel by senior citizens. This is atrocious. Despite many
representations from various quarters, the Central Government has not come
forward to restore the facility.
The NCCPA has already called upon its
affiliates and members to organise dharna/demonstration on 25th to
express solidarity and support to the working class in the country. NCCPA fervently feels that the 26th
November, 2020 strike will bring to the centre stage of discourse the real
issues. NCCPA salutes the workers in the
country for the strenuous efforts undertaken by them to make the 26th
November, 2020 a grand success. NCCPA
expresses its solidarity with them unequivocally and expects the future course
of action to be more intense, more united and more militant.
K.K.N. KUTTY
SECRETARY GENERAL.
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