Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said states which have reverted to the old pension system (OPS) can’t withdraw the accumulated corpus from the National Pension System (NPS) as these funds belong to the employees as per the law.

The minister was responding to questions relating to demand raised by the Congress governments of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, which have sought return of the NPS corpus, but the Centre has declined to do so.

Speaking at Shimla ahead of the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections Saturday, where the Congress has promised to implement OPS if voted to power, Sitharaman said the money in the NPS kitty cannot go back to the state government. “It can only go to back to the contributing workers. Can we change the law?” she asked.

Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel recently said the Centre has refused to return the Rs 17, 000 crore NPS corpus of the state government employees enrolled under NPS.

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The NPS corpus is overseen by the pension regulator and managed by various fund managers. Also, withdrawals from NPS by state government employees won’t be possible fully, according to the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) regulations that specify that though a subscriber can prematurely withdraw from NPS after five years of enrollment, she can only withdraw 20% of the corpus. The balance 80% has to be invested in an annuity scheme. Upon superannuation, 60% of the accumulated corpus from contributions during a person’s working years is allowed to be withdrawn at the time of retirement. Such a withdrawal is also tax-free. The balance 40% is invested in annuities to generate a monthly pension.

Ahead of the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections in early December, some political parties have also announced that they will implement the OPS if they are voted to power.

So far four states — Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Punjab — have announced their plan to revert to the OPS (defined benefits scheme) from the NPS (defined contribution scheme). 15th Finance Commission chairman NK Singh had said the OPS was regressive.

“The pension and salary revenues of Rajasthan amount to 56% of its tax and non-tax revenues. Thus, the 6% of the population which is made up of civil servants stands to benefit largely from this 56% of the state’s revenues,” Singh had said.

Debt-GSDP of Punjab was estimated to be the highest at 53.3% of GSDP among states, followed by Rajasthan at 39.5%. According to a recent RBI report, if contingent liabilities are fully invoked, Rajashtan will see an additional 8.6% debt-GSDP, followed by Punjab (5.3%).