The government plans to come up with a contributory pension scheme for its employees who joined service after October 2002, but deferred a decision to set up a National Tax Tribunal to speed up settlement of disputes.

These decisions were taken by the Union Cabinet at its meeting in New Delhi on Saturday.

The new contributory pension scheme, managed by independent fund managers, has been mooted by the finance ministry for all government staff, as part of efforts to reduce government's pension liabilities, sources said.

One-tenth of the basic pay of government staff and dearness allowance will be deducted from their salary and put in the pension fund with the Centre making a matching contribution.

The government would mandate the proposed Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority to licence the new pension funds.

The new scheme follows the recommendations made by the B K Bhattacharya Committee that went into Centre's own pension provisions.

Following the announcement by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh last month, the government also plans to set up a National Tax Tribunal which will take up cases pending in high courts.

The number of pending cases in various courts have gone up to 315,000 locking up over Rs 42,860 crore (Rs 428.60 billion) in revenue.