Orissa Pension Burden Decline To 8.4Pc

Bhubaneswar: Pension payment as a percentage of total revenue receipts has fell in Orissa. It was 8.47 percent in 2006-07 while the national average was 9.08 percent during the same period. The ratio of pensions to the total revenue receipts was 10.63 percent in 2004-05 compared with 10.05 percent for the country as a whole. Significantly, prudent fiscal management and the findings of the group constituted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in February 2003 to study pension liabilities of the state governments came in handy to help the finance department. The RBI group advised introduction of Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) for the state government employees in place of existing non-contributory defined benefit pension scheme.