The central government has given great relief to the central employees and has extended the last date for joining the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) for two months to 30 November 2025. Earlier this date was 30 September 2025, which has now increased more time to the employees so that they can decide to join the scheme comfortably. This step has been taken by the Finance Ministry and it has also been informed to PFRDA, a pension regulatory body.
The UPS Scheme has been launched by the Central Government as an alternative to the National Pension System (NPS) from 1 April 2025. The employees involved get a certain monthly pension after retirement, which can be up to 50% of their last 12 months average basic salary. In this scheme, the employee has to contribute 10% of his salary, while the government contributes 18.5%. Its purpose is to provide better pension facilities to employees and to ensure economic security after their retirement.
So far, out of a total of 23 lakh central employees, only about 1 lakh employees have opted for UPS. In view of this low participation, the government decided that employees should be given more time so that they can take the right decision by understanding the benefits of switching from NPS to UPS. This deadline has been extended after the demand of employees and employee organizations.
Several reforms have also been made in UPS recently, including new facilities such as switch options, benefits on resignation, benefits of compulsory retirement and tax exemption. To understand these changes and get complete information about the plan, there was a need to give additional time to the employees, due to which the deadline has been increased. With this, employees will be able to easily switch to get fixed pension under the scheme.
Under this scheme, the employee serving at least 10 years gets a minimum monthly pension of Rs 10,000, while employees with 25 years or more will get 50% pension of the final salary. This scheme is specially made for employees who were admitted to the Central Government after 1 January 2004 and fall under NPS.