# Jammu and Kashmir gives NPS staff one-time option to switch to OPS 2026-09-30T07:08:55+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet The Jammu and Kashmir government has issued a one-time option for employees covered under the National Pension System (NPS) to switch to the Old Pension Scheme (OPS). To qualify, the employee must have been appointed against a post advertised or notified for recruitment before 24 December 2009, but joined service on or after 1 January 2010, when the NPS took effect. The notification, dated 28 September 2026, gives eligible staff until 28 December 2026 to exercise the option. Applications must be submitted through a Drawing and Disbursing Officer to the Head of Department, which will forward them to the relevant administrative department. That department will scrutinise each case and issue eligibility orders within a month. Once an employee switches to the OPS, the switch is irreversible, and the employee must subscribe to the General Provident Fund. The NPS account of approved employees will be closed from the first of the month following the September notification. The move follows a 2024 clarification from the central Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare that its March 2023 order, which gave central government recruits a similar one-time OPS option, does not automatically apply to state or Union Territory employees. The J&K government then placed the matter before its Council of Ministers on 10 September 2026, which approved the proposal on the same day. ## Indian Opinion Analysis The J&K government now faces a tight three-month window to process applications under a scheme that shifts the pension burden from employees’ individual accounts back to the exchequer. The one-time option is narrowly tailored: only recruits whose vacancy was advertised before the 24 December 2009 NPS notification but who joined after 1 January 2010 qualify. That carve-out reflects the central government’s 2023 precedent and the September 2026 cabinet approval. Officials must issue eligibility orders within a month of application, while the NPS corpus of approved employees will be closed from the month after the September notification. The counting of applicants and the eventual fiscal impact will become clearer after the 28 December 2026 deadline. ## Coverage - economictimes.indiatimes.com Leads with the government's notification details and eligibility criteria, frames the policy as a settled response to court cases and a central government precedent, rather than as a fiscal risk or a political move. No opposition or criticism is mentioned. This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Tags: DoP&PW, Jammu and Kashmir, National Pension System, Old Pension Scheme, Union Territory Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/jammu-and-kashmir-gives-nps-staff-one-time-option-to-switch-to-ops/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/jammu-and-kashmir-gives-nps-staff-one-time-option-to-switch-to-ops/#story-in-brief How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/