Nagpur, Dec 12 (IANS): Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who holds the Finance portfolio, on Tuesday assured that the MahaYuti government will take a decision on the Old Pension Scheme before the 2024 Assembly elections.

He made the commitment in the legislature after a government-appointed 3-member panel submitted its report on the OPS to the state, while adding that the Centre is also considering the OPS.

Ajit Pawar said that in case the Central government takes a decision on the OPS then the state would follow suit, and meanwhile the government would study the report submitted by the panel comprising experts Subodh Kumar, K. P. Bakshi, and Sudhir Srivastava.

He assured the legislature that the government was positive on the OPS and expected to take the decision before the 2024 Assembly polls.

Meanwhile, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis urged the pensioners to call off their agitation and give time to the government to consider the OPS report.

Outside the legislature, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies Congress and Shiv Sena-UBT leaders addressed a protest march of pensioners who are demanding the reinstatement of the OPS, and expressed solidarity to their cause.

Addressing the government pensioners who had converged here from all over the state, Congress state President Nana Patole and Shiv Sena-UBT President and ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray demanded that the state government should immediately concede the OPS issue of the pensioners.

Patole said that he had raised the issue in the legislature and the Congress supports the OPS as a constitutional right of the pensioners which they must get. He pointed out that Congress-ruled states have already implemented the OPS so there’s no reason why it cannot be replicated in Maharashtra and urged the MahaYuti regime to take cognisance of the pensioners’ sentiments.

Thackeray said that if the MVA government headed by him was in power, "then this protest march would not have been needed" as he would have taken the decision to restore and implement the OPS, which was discontinued here in 2005.

"Do not stop your fight till you get a victory… The state government is not willing to help your cause… and they may try to misguide you with false promises. You must guard against them… The time has come to end the politics of treachery and falsehoods in Maharashtra and throw out the insensitive regime," he declared.