Finance Secretary Khairuzzaman Mozumder on Wednesday said that the government has set a target to bring all public servants under the Universal Pension Scheme (UpS) introduced in 2023.
"Ultimately our goal is to bring the government employees under the Universal Pension Scheme," he said while responding to questions at the inaugural ceremony of the UPension App at the finance ministry where Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed was the chief guest.
The finance secretary said that although it was initially planned to bring all public servants under the Universal Pension Scheme by July 2025, the plan has since been put on hold.
"Now, the process will be carried out gradually, and while the timeline has been suspended, the target itself has not been scrapped," he said.
He mentioned the pension system in India where everyone is under one universal pension scheme. "We will do that gradually," he added.
The finance secretary said there was a criticism that there is nothing like that for the non-government job holders which exists in the developed countries across the globe.
"After studying several years from the Finance Division, we have introduced the system to provide protection for the private job holders, this is a very good package," he said.
He also mentioned that since the inception of the system in 2023, some 3,75,000 persons have been enlisted in this UPS.
National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Abdur Rahman Khan said that public university teachers opposed being enlisted in this UPS at that time as they had found that they would be getting less benefits from the existing system.
"We have to address those problems, there might be a little bit of a slide down in benefits, but must not be highly different from the existing pension system," he said.
National Pension Authority Executive Chairman Mohiuddin Khan also spoke at the programme.
The UPS is a government-led, contributory pension programme designed to provide a structured retirement safety net for all citizens aged 18 and above.
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