The Eastern Zonal Council, comprising the states of
Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand, will meet on April 26 in Kolkata to
discuss several inter-state issues. This time, instead of chief ministers the
member states will be represented by chief secretaries.

Bihar’s main concern is likely to be its ongoing dispute
with Jharkhand over the latter’s alleged failure to meet pension liabilities
for retired employees for the last three years, reported Hindustan
Times.

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In 2000, after the partition of Bihar and the creation of
Jharkhand, the two governments agreed to share assets and liabilities under
which the sharing of pension liabilities of retired employees was made on the
proportion of the number of employees.

In the initial years, Jharkhand and Bihar both fulfilled the pension contributions according to the number of employees, the dispute over the payment of liabilities started in 2012. It was later resolved. A few years back, the Jharkhand government approached the Supreme Court to that the formula of sharing pension liabilities was wrong.

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Jharkhand government’s petition in the Supreme Court is
that sharing of pension liabilities based on employees’ ratio according to
provisions of Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000 was wrong in all previous states
reorganisation acts as population ratio was the main criteria to determine to
share of liabilities including pension, reported Hindustan Times.

The Jharkhand government is putting up population ratio
as criteria for calculating pension liability as the amount is much less than
when calculated on the number of employees ratio.

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The case is pending in the Supreme court even while the
Jharkhand government has stopped making payments for the past few years despite
receiving regular reminders from the Bihar government. In December 2021, the
Bihar government asked the Jharkhand government to pay Rs 975 crores as pension
dues against pension liabilities 2018-19 to 2020-21.

The Jharkhand government
has paid its pension liabilities in the past, but there had been some
complications due to the incorrectness of the figures related to pension liability,
Jharkhand chief secretary Sukhdeo Singh told HT.

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 “We did our
calculations and found the figures to be different from the amount being asked
against pension liabilities. The complication is basically on the correctness
of the figures,” he said.

While Bihar chief secretary Amir Subhani said the pension
liability issue with Jharkhand might come up at the Eastern Zonal Council
meeting.

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As part of the meeting, the Council is likely to discuss
the measures and better coordination between states to combat left-wing
extremism (LWE), which continues to pose a challenge to security forces in
eastern states. Along with other inter-state issues, road and water management
issues are also expected to be discussed.