Business Desk, New Delhi. The central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday approved the Unified Pension Scheme for central employees. According to Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, it will affect 23 lakh government employees. The government wants to provide financial security to government employees and their families through the new pension scheme. Let us understand in five points what the Unified Pension Scheme is and what benefits the employees will get from it.

Assured Pension

In the Unified Pension Scheme, employees who have served for at least 10 years will be guaranteed a fixed pension. If an employee has completed 25 years of service, he will get half i.e. 50% of his average basic salary of the 12 months before retirement as a fixed pension.

Assured Family Pension

If an employee dies, his dependent will get a guaranteed family pension. This will be 60 percent of the last pension received by the employee. This means that if an employee was getting a pension of Rs 25,000, then after death the dependent will get Rs 15,000 per month.

Assured Minimum Pension

Under the Unified Pension Scheme, all those employees who have completed at least 10 years of service will be guaranteed a minimum pension. They will be guaranteed a minimum pension of Rs 10,000 per month after retirement. This will especially benefit those employees who do not have much service left.

Inflation Indexation

The pension received under UPS will be adjusted according to inflation. This means that the pension amount will remain in sync with inflation and will be increased according to inflation. Also, retired employees in UPS will also be given dearness relief based on the All India Consumer Price Index (AICPI-IW) like serving employees.

Lump sum payment on retirement

Central government employees will get lump sum payment along with gratuity on retirement. 10% of the employee's last monthly salary (sum of basic salary and dearness allowance received at the time of retirement) will be paid for every six months of service. This will not affect the pension amount.