NVS Retired Employees Association to gather today to protest against plight of retired employees

The NVS Retired Employees Association of Navodaya Vidyalaya, formed in 1985, is conducting a gathering today on April 3, 2023, at Jantar Mantar with the support of JNV Alumni and JNV Foundation as a facilitator to highlight the plight of Retired Employees in absence of any Retirement Pension or Medical Benefit to the staff.

NVS formed as an Autonomous Body under the erstwhile Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India in 1985 and registered as a Society in February 1986. As per DOPT orders of May 1987, since NVS was not in existence as of 01.01.1986 the CCS(Pension) 1972 was denied at a later stage although at the time of its formation Pension was to be implemented automatically.

For the last three decades, the Pension Proposal is on move not reaching any conclusion resulting suffering of Retired Staff in absence of pension and medical benefits. 

To cover NVS Employees in the armpit of Pension, the Executive Committee of NVS passed a resolution in its meeting held on March 26, 2021, that "it is the established fact that NVS existed well before it registered as Society. The Employees of NVS should not be barred from their Pension for a Technical reason the organization was registered as Society after two months after the cutoff date for considering the organization for extending the Pension scheme".

Based on the above recommendations, a proposal was put up to the Ministry of Finance through the Department of School Education and this proposal is still pending before the Finance Ministry. The NVS Retired Employees had also represented before the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India several times in the past but a final decision is still awaited. 

The joint gathering of NVS Retired Employees, Alumni of JNV, etc is to appeal to the Hon'ble Speaker, Hon'ble Prime Minister, Hon'ble Finance Minister & Hon'ble Education Minister to consider the long pending Pension case of NVS Employees and pass suitable orders for applicability of Pension to them to mitigate their sufferings.

Navodaya Vidyalaya was formed in 1985, by the recommendation of the Union Cabinet, two Navodaya Vidyalaya opened in Jhajjar, Amravati which were operated by NCERT to whose employees all the benefits were due.

In the same sequence, in 1986, the government started opening schools by changing the name of Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti to Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya.

Today there are 661 schools in every district of India. Thousands of employees were appointed from 1986 to 2003 but did not get pensions on retirement. Verbal assurances were given to them by the officers of the committee.

These officers mostly came on deputation from different departments from the IAS cadre, who were deprived of the basic salary of the teachers. More than 400 students of Navodaya are in IAS, IPS, IES, and ARS, as more than 2000 doctors, more than 5000 engineers, and other services. There are 8 MLAs in Bihar, one MP in Telangana, one MLA in Uttar Pradesh, and one MLA in Shillong.

The teachers of Navodaya, who gave successful students to the country, are in need today. About 12000 employees who have retired were appointed before 2003 and are yet to receive a pension.