Mangaluru: State President of Karnataka State Tailors Association (KSTA), Vasant B flagged off a protest march from Shanthikiran Grounds to Deputy Commissioner’s office, here on March 1.
Vasant said, “The government had passed the Social Security Act in 2008 with an eye to provide social security to the unorganized class of workers. National Pension Scheme- Lite (NPS-Lite) was introduced with an aim to provide the unorganized workers with the pension facility in 2010-11. According to the scheme, if the unorganized worker between the age group of 18-60 deposited Rs 100 per month, then the Central Government would give him a pension of Rs 1000 and the State Government would give him a pension of Rs 1200.”
He further said, “The present Central Government, has issued an order which doesn’t allow enrollment of any new member in the pension scheme from April 2015. They have also urged all those under the age of 40 to join Atal Pension Yojana (APY) and those above the age of 40 are not allowed to join APY.”
There are more than 10000 tailors in Karnataka who are covered under this scheme. “If the Government stops the enrollment of new members then their future is uncertain. Hence the KSTA requests the government to resume the NPS-Lite scheme without any changes to it,” he added.
Secretary Jayashankar, Kishore D Shetty, KS Anand, Krishnappa Salyan, Praveen Salyan and hundreds of tailors also took part in the protest.
