Proposal of raising the Retirement Age of Government Staffs
Is raising retirement age of Central Government Employee a threat for employment prospects of youth ?
At the end of Every Year people used to talk about the proposal of
raising the retirement age of government servants. Normally the people
who are at the verge of retirement from government service are eagerly
expecting the government to increase the retirement age. The Government
servants especially those who are in the pay structure of Pay band –I
will have to face financial burden as the Pension amount they will be
paid after commutation will be very meager and it is not sufficient
enough to meet their expenses of day to day life. Because the Government
employees those who are drawing grade pay of Rs.1800/-, 1900/-, 2000/-,
2400/-and 2800/- will get only around Rs.20000 as the gross salary of
every month. It is understood that one cannot lead a financially
successful life with this income alone. So many government servants, to
run the life, forced to avail loans from where ever they can get. At the
end, they are badly in debt at the time of retirement.
That is why the government servants don’t feel happy about retiring from
service. But extending the service of two years from 60 to 62 will not
solve all their problems. It will help them to put off facing the
financial crisis for at least two years. But the Government does not
consider this aspect any way to increase the retirement age of central
government employees from 60 to 62.
Extension of Service to Bureaucrats
The Central Government always wanted to make better use of the knowledge
and experience of its Bureaucrats even after their retirement. In other
words Government wants to secure their top brass preferably IAS
officers by giving service extension. Sometime extending their service
for further period of two year is difficult task for the concerned
department. Extension in service can be given only in “exceptional
circumstances”. For example recently home Ministry wanted to give one
year extension to its former Director-General of the Central Reserve
Police Force (CRPF) as he has done commendable work in his stint . But
it was denied by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).
However, it was mainly the service rules that led to the ACC declining
Home Ministry’s proposal. Normally IAS officers offered multiple service
extension.
The Retirement Age of Professors
The Central Government has already increased the retirement age of
professors in all the central universities from 62 to 65 years, two
years back. Before that, the retirement age of professors of Central
Universities was 62 with the provision for re-employment for three years
after the superannuation. That time there was some allegation that this
provision of re-employment was being “misused” by the authorities who
took such decisions in an “arbitrary” manner. So Central Government
decided to increase the retirement age of Professors to 65 uniformly.
One year extension for state government employees
Recently the Punjab government’s decided to offer an extension of one
year in service to its retiring employees with effect from October 2012 .
The condition laid down for this offer was 1.Employees will be given an
option to continue at the same salary.2. They will get no increments in
salary during the extension period but will get any due promotions. The
decision to give the extension was taken to meet the shortage of 35,000
employees who are expected to retire in next one year. Since, the move
may affect employment prospects of the youth, the government increased
the maximum age limit for recruitment into government service from 37 to
38 years.
The Retirement Age of Judges
On August 18, 2012, The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, speaking at
the 150th year celebrations of the Bombay High Court, said the
government was in favour of raising the age of retirement of High Court
judges. Presently, Supreme Court judges retire at 65 and High Court
judges at 62.
Re engagement of Retired Employees in Railways
Whether it is true or not but it is believed that Railway gave its
consensus to raise the retirement age of its employees, as it is already
re-engaging their retired employee for daily remuneration after their
retirement till the age of 62. It was followed from 1998 with the
reference of Railway Board Letter No.E(NG)II/97/RC-4/8 dated 03.02.98.
In 2009 the rates of Daily Allowances also revised for engagement of
retired employees on daily remuneration basis.
So keeping in view of the entire above aspects one can assume that the
state and central governments and some Departments are in fovour of
increasing the retirement age of Central and State government employees.
But Social Activists and youth associations are against this
proposal and they expressed their dissatisfaction over this and telling
that the retirement age of central government employees should not be
increased to 62 as increasing the retirement age is a threat for
employment prospects of the youth.Many of them opined that instead of
increasing, the retirement age should be reduced to 58 so that the
youngsters will be given opportunity to get into Central government
services.
http://www.centralgovernmentnews.com/proposal-of-raising-the-retirement-age-of-government-staffs/
