Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 14: The State Government has directed the Chief Secretary and General Administration Department (GAD) Secretary to work out details on account of increase in retirement age of the Government employees by one or two years.
Official sources said the Government has asked Chief Secretary Mohammad Iqbal Khandey and the GAD Secretary to find out number of employees retiring in the next one year and two years as an equal number of vacancies would be lost for the unemployed youth if the Government decided to go ahead with its decision to increase retirement age of the employees either by one or two years.
Sources, however, said that the Government decision was confined only to the exercise and no decision has so far been taken to increase retirement age of the employees by one or two years.
“The Cabinet would take a decision as and when the exercise by the Chief Secretary and the GAD Secretary is completed,’’ sources said.
They added that if the Government didn’t take a decision in next about 10 days, it would have to be deferred till June as the Election Commission of India was going to impose Model Code of Conduct for Lok Sabha elections by the end of this month or start of next month. After the Code of Conduct is imposed, the Government can’t take a decision on increase in retirement age of the employees.
Sources pointed out that the Chief Secretary as well as the GAD Secretary were in touch with various organisations of the employees on the issue of enhancement of retirement age. The employees’ organisations had recently deferred their strike following a word that the Government has initiated an exercise to discuss pros and cons of the increase in retirement age of the employees.
Sources said the Government would have to keep in mind the wrath of unemployed youths or announce a special employment package before taking any decision on increasing retirement age of the employees. The unemployed youths were already up in arms against the Government for new job policy under which they had been virtually rendered as daily wagers for first five years of the job with only meager stipend being paid to them.
On the other, the Government was also aware of strong resentment among the Government and PSU employees over delay in increasing the retirement age. The age of retirement in the Central Government Departments is 60 while it was 58 for State Government and PSU employees. The Government feared losing major chunk of votes if it didn’t increase the retirement age.
Recently, the Punjab Government had increase retirement age of its Government employees by one year from 58 to 59 but simultaneously raised by one year the qualifying age for Government jobs.
Sources said the Government was likely to take a decision on whether to increase retirement age of its employees or not only after the Chief Secretary and the GAD Secretary completed the exercise assigned to them by the Government.
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