Employees and officers of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) under the banner of the United Forum of Officers, Employees and Retirees of Nabard have announced a one-day strike on March 30 to press a list of demands including updation of pension and other service conditions.

The demand list includes parity with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) since Nabard employee service conditions, including superannuation, are patterned alone RBI lines since inception; another option for Contributory Provident Fund (CPF) optees to defined pension; full pension after 20 years of service; and pension calculation to be based on the average of last 10 months' pay, or last pay, whichever is beneficial, among others.

Former head honchos write to FM

Former Nabard Chairpersons and Managing Directors including P Kotiah, PVA Rama Rao, MVS Chalapathi Rao, Ranjana Kumar, YSP Thorat, and Umesh Chandra Sarangi have written a signed request to the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman requesting her intervention in the matter of pension updation.

They recalled that the Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance, Government of India, had in March 2019 conveyed its approval for updation of pension up to October 31, 2012, for the retirees of the RBI and the same has been implemented in RBI from March 2019.

The Centre had in its letter in June 2020 also given no objection to the RBI for giving a last opportunity to its employees to exercise the option for pension to the CPF. The RBI has since granted the last opportunity to its employees for switching over to the pension scheme in lieu of the CPF.

Full pension after 20 years

Earlier, the RBI had with effect from 2013 onwards and on lines of the Central government granted full pension to employees after completion of 20 years in service since both the RBI and Nabard pension regulations are patterned on the lines of the Government of India, the letter to the Finance Minister said.

Later, the DFS had approved with effect from November 2017, calculation of pension based on last pay drawn or the average emoluments in the last 10 months, whichever is more beneficial, to employees of the RBI. In June 2020, it has approved one more option to employees to opt for the RBI pension scheme.

Almost all Nabard pensioners are officers and employees of the RBI at one time or the other and most of them have spent a larger part of their service with it before opting for Nabard when it was carved out as a ‘Development Financial Institution for Agriculture and Rural Development’ in 1982 by an Act of Parliament.

Bipartite wage agreements

The principles enunciated in Nabard Act 1981 and Nabard Staff Rules 1982 are further reinforced by modeling Nabard employees service conditions, including superannuation benefits, on the lines of RBI for all staff members by virtue of seven bipartite wage agreements signed between All India Nabard Employees Association and the Nabard management between 1986 and 2017 and cleared by the Centre as well.

The letter the from former Nabard head honchos also said that Nabard has revised the family pension on the lines of the RBI by amending the Nabard Pension Regulation 1993 and duly approved by the Finance Ministry in 2014. Given this, the number of pensioners awaiting pension updation would be less than 2,400, it added.