India Keen To Learn More On Malaysia's Pension Scheme

By S. Santhiran NEW DELHI, Dec 14 (Bernama) -- India is keen to learn more about Malaysia's pension scheme and extend it to the country's civil service. Public Service Department (PSD) director-general, Mohamad Zabidi Zainal said a delegation from India's civil service was in Malaysia recently as a follow-up to the Joint Working Group on Public Administration and Governance established between both countries in November, 2013. "They (India) have their own schemes but the Indians want us to share our experiences in managing our scheme," Zabidi told Bernama, here, after his working visit to the state of Karnataka and India's capital, New Delhi. He said apart from the pension scheme, Indian was also keen on Malaysia's online services provided by the government, especially the 1 Malaysia One Call Centre (1MOCC). The single-point contact centre operates 24 hours to answer any public enquiry, complaint, suggestion or feedback via phone call, short message service (SMS), fax, email and social media. Zabidi said India's plan was in line with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's policy of bringing technology closer to the people via the "Digital India" policy, where its government departments were working towards better and faster services via its own one-stop centre. While in Delhi, Zabidi attended a meeting with secretary of the Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Department, Devendra Chaudhry, as a follow-up to the MoU signed by Modi and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Both leaders agreed on seven areas of cooperation between the two countries' public sector, including in English language training and attachment programme. Zabidi visited the Administrative Staff College of India, Indian School of Business (ISB) and the English and Foreign Language (EFL) University, here. He also had a discussion with Malaysian students at Mysore and Bengaluru in the state of Karnataka. According to PSD officials, currently there are about 820 PSD-sponsored students and 830 sponsored by MARA in colleges in the state with most of them persuing medical and dentistry degrees. -- BERNAMA