Vision and Mission of PREA

 

POWERGRID Retired Employees Association (PREA), New Delhi

(Registered under Societies Registration Act XXI 1860)


“POWERGRID Retired Employees Association” (PREA) is a ‘Social Welfare’ organization, with its operational area encompassing the entire country. It is registered with Government of NCT, Delhi on 14th September, 2018. As the name suggests, all ex-employees of "Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd”, a Maharatna Public Sector, who have either retired after attaining the age of superannuation or taken premature retirement after the attaining the age of 55 are its members. The membership is open to all the Cadres from workmen to CEOs.

Mission

The Association aims to promote brotherhood, mutual harmony and feelings of love/affection among its members and help them during the period of distress.

Activities

It can organize meetings, conferences and seminar on matters related to welfare of Association. It shall create awareness among the members about various Government/POWERGRID schemes and shall be a voice its members. It shall take up the matters of common welfare and interact with concerned officials and may resort to legal actions, if required.

Area of Concern

The Association is presently concerned about the pension paid by EPFO under EPS-95 Scheme. This pension is paltry and does not take care of even 5% needs of bare bread and shelter even in a B-Class city. The basic reason for the low pension is the fact that the contribution to the pension fund was restricted to the ‘Wage Ceiling Limits’ by EPFO instead of the ‘Actual Salary' despite a provision under para 11(3) of the scheme. EPFO never sought any option from employees desirous to pay higher contribution, as provided in the scheme. However, some vigilant employees of HTC, a PSU in Haryana, viz R C Gupta, Mr. Praveen Kohliand others opted for higher pension, which was resisted by EPFO. However, they could eventually succeed, throughjudicial intervention. In one case of Mr. Kohli, the pension got revised from Rs. 2372.00 to Rs. 30,500.00, after payment of higher contribution.

The employees of several organizations either individually or collectively as an association have resorted to legal recourse and some of them have started getting higher pension after a favorable judgments by H’ble Kerala HC. The H’bleSC also ruled favorably on 4th October, 2016 and directed EPFO to pay higher pension to consentingemployees. However, the EPFO restricted the higher pension to non-exempted organizations through their internal order 31st May, 2017,this has created ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ within the organizations for no fault of the employees defying the‘Right to Equality’ under‘Article 14’of the Indian Constitution. This order has also been challenged and HC of AP and Telangana have ruled that no differentiation can be made on the grounds of exempt and/or non-exempt organizations. Besides this there are several other issues such as GSR 609 etc.

The Association is left with no alternative but to join the legal recourse, taken by more than 40 other organizations. In the meantime the EPFO and Govt. of India have also filed SLPs on the issue. All these cases are bunched and are pending with H’ble SC since long with no hearing in sight due to current pandemic.



- Dr. N. S. Saxena, President, PREA