Meeting With Finance Minister

What is the likely impact of meeting with Finance Minister for recently retired bankers.

Meeting With Finance Minister :
It has been reported that UFBU leaders represented to the Finance Minister that since the Actuarial Report was based on the details of 31-3-2008, the pension option settlement should be effective from 1-4-2008, i.e. those who were on service on 1-4-2008 should be treated as existing employees for the sake of the settlement and pension payments on account of the option should be made from 1-4-2008.
FM did not agree with this viewpoints. However, he stated that the effective date can be taken as 27-11-2009, i.e. the date on which we had signed the MOU.
What is the impact of this decision, which is likely to be the agreed upon by all (IBA & UFBU):
Now, let us try to analyse as to what will be its impact on recently retired bankers.
We are of the opinion that all those bankers who retired between 01-11-2007 and 26/11/2009 (i.e. almost a period of two years) and were PF optees and now wish to switch over to Pension option, will be at a great loss. These people were being given the impression that as the new settlement will be effective from 1-11-2007, at least all these bankers will be at par with the bankers who are in service at present.
Now all those retirees (i.e. ex bankers who retired between 01.11.2007 and 26.11.2009), have to return 156% of the bank's contribution of PF amount, instead of merely 1.6 times of the salary of November, 2007. Had they been considered at par with the existing bankers in service, they would have been asked to merely pay 1.6 times of the salary of November, 2007 + bank's contribution was to be returned.

Let us take an Example : Let us suppose a person who retired on 31st October, 2009, and he received PF amount, which included bank's contribution to the tune of Rs.10,00,000/-, and the Basic Pay we got fixed under the new scales is Rs.38200/-. Now, in case he wishes to opt for the pension, he will have to shell out Rs.15,60,000/- from his savings. Had he retired on 30th November, 2009, he would have to merely pay Rs. 61,120/-+Rs10,00,000/-. Thus, he will be paying almost Rs 4,98,000/- extra merely because he retired only one month earlier (of course he retired after the date of the New Settlement i.e 01-11-2007). It was merely due to the delaying tactics of IBA that this person will be suffering. Mostly likely they also have to pay the 1.6 times of the November, 2007 salary as this is to be paid by everybody who is entitled for arrears wef 01-11-2007.

We feels this group of people will be the most affected in terms of immediate maximum outflow of funds. Most of them have hardly used the funds received at the time of retirement.
Their cases are even more genuine then the existing pension optees who are asked to contribute towards the gap for offering 2nd option to PF optees. In case of pension optees, unions may still be able to prove that PF optees actually shared some load in earlier settlements to pay off the pension optees. However, in case of retirees after 01-11-2007, it is strong case as the new settlement is effective from 01-11-2007 for all almost all purposes expect for 2nd option for pension.