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.
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