CHANDIGARH, Dec 12 — The decks have been cleared for the disbursement of pension to both teaching and non-teaching employees of government-aided private colleges in Haryana.

“We will start the disbursement of pension this month as the state Cabinet, which met today, has cleared the revised pension scheme for employees of government-aided private colleges in the state,” a spokesperson of the Haryana Government told The Tribune this evening.

Haryana has thus become the first state in this part of the country to implement the pension scheme for the employees of government-aided private colleges. In the neighbouring Punjab and Chandigarh, employees of private colleges are still agitating to get their demand conceded.

At present there are more than 5,000 employees in 96 government-aided private colleges in Haryana who will benefit by this decision.

The Haryana Government had notified the pension scheme for employees of private colleges on May 31 last year. It was to be implemented with retrospective effect from May 11, 1998. But because of certain ambiguities and discrepancies in the scheme, it could not be implemented. Even the Auditor-General raised objections to certain clauses of the scheme.

As such, several important changes were made to the pension scheme notified last year before being approved today. Under the new scheme, the disbursement of the pension would be through the Education Department and not through the state or district treasury. The pension amount would be disbursed to the beneficiary colleges as additional grant-in-aid, the spokesperson said.

One of the major irritants in the old pension scheme was that the managements of these government-aided private colleges were required to deposit the full amount of the employers’ share along with interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum with the government for employees retiring from May 11, 1998, to the date of publication of these pension rules in the official gazette, who exercised the option to be governed by these rules. The managements of the private colleges, however, argued that since they were earning much less on their share by keeping this money in saving bank accounts, they could not pay 12 per cent interest. Instead, the amended policy says that they would be required to deposit the full amount of the employers’ share along with the interest on such share actually drawn by the employee at the time of retirement plus 12 per cent per annum on this amount to be calculated from the date of drawl of the said amount to the date of deposit with the government.

The new policy also takes care of discrepancy in the age of superannuation. Under the revised policy, the age of superannuation for the employees of the private colleges shall be 60 years. Under the old policy, for certain categories, the retirement age was mentioned as 58.

Another significant amendment made to the pension scheme is that the service rendered in one or more private affiliated colleges, receiving grant-in-aid under the same management, will be considered for pension purposes. Under the old policy, the service rendered in other colleges, though under the same management, was not to be counted for pension.