The Himachal Pradesh government on Friday decided to implement the old pension scheme (OPS) for the existing 1.36 lakh employees, and for the future employees too.

A decision in this regard was taken at the Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu here.

It was decided that the OPS beneficiaries would also be brought under the ambit of GPF and those employees under the new pension scheme (NPS), who retired after May 15, 2003, will be given OPS from the prospective date.

It was decided that after necessary amendments to the rules, the contribution by the government and the employees under the NPS will stop from April 1, 2023.

No deductions would be made from the employees from their salary under the NPS from April 1. If any employee wants to be governed under the NPS, he/she can give his consent to the government in this regard.

The government will spend an additional amount of Rs 1,000 crore in fiscal 2023-24 on the implementation of the OPS.

The Cabinet also passed a resolution to be sent to the Central government to return Rs 8,000 crore under the ambit of the state's NPS.

The Cabinet asked the Finance Department to amend the rules and issue necessary instructions in this regard.

It was also decided to engage 780 ASHA workers under the National Health Mission (NHM) on an incentive basis to provide affordable and reliable healthcare to the people.

It gave a nod to guidelines for the engagement of ASHA facilitators under the Community Process Programme.

The Cabinet decided to transfer Rs 600 per student to all the girls, besides the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and below poverty line (BPL) boys studying from Class I to VIII through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), either in the name of the student or mother, in place of providing them free school uniform.

This would benefit about 3.70 lakh students in the state.

The Cabinet gave go-ahead to lease out the toll barriers under Himachal Pradesh Tolls Act, 1975, by way of auction-cum-tender process for 2023-24. (KB/IANS)