Money in NPS belongs to people, can't go back to state govts as per law: FM

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the money in the National Pension Scheme (NPS) belongs to individual contributors and as per law, state governments cannot get it back.

Responding to queries on restoration of the old pension scheme (OPS), Sitharaman clarified at a press conference that Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh governments that are asking the Centre to return the money, cannot get it back as per law.

Chief Ministers of these two states have asked the Centre to return the people's money under NPS for restarting OPS in their states.

Both the Congress-ruled states have notified the reintroduction of OPS for government employees and have said the Centre cannot hold back employees' money.

The Congress has also promised to restart OPS for government employees in Himachal Pradesh and this has become a major poll issue in this assembly election as there are 1.75 lakh government employees in the state.

Himachal Pradesh goes to the polls on November 12.

"As per law, th