Delhi: A pre-budget meeting was held in Delhi on Friday. Chief Ministers of many states of the country attended this meeting, in which Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel was also present. He met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. And has demanded the amount related to NPS.

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said that Rs 17,240 crore of NPS should be returned to the state, and the state’s share will be deposited in a separate pension fund. In this meeting, important issues regarding Budget 2023 were discussed with the Finance Minister. A meeting of finance ministers of all the states of the country has been called at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in Shimla last week that the money deposited in the National Pension Scheme (NPS) belongs to the individuals contributing to it and the state government cannot take it under the law. Sitharaman said the governments of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have been asking the Center to return the money, but this cannot be done under the law.

Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, both Congress-ruled states, have notified the revival of the Old Pension System (OPS) for government employees. The state government says that the Center cannot keep the employees’ money. Even in the month of December last year, in the meeting before the budget 2022, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel made many demands to Sitharaman which are still pending. 

Among these, Chief Minister Baghel demanded compensation for GST, Rs 4,140 crore deposited with the Center on coal mining to be given to Chhattisgarh at the earliest, and reimbursement of the expenditure of Rs 15,000 crore on central security forces deployed for the eradication of Naxalism.