Retirement Age Of Central Staff Raised To 60 Yrs

The Union government has with immediate effect raised the retirement age of all central government employees to 60 from the current 58 years. This follows a cabinet decision to this effect yesterday which also raised the recruitment age from 28 years to 30 years.

A similar move is expected to be made by the state governments which generally follow the policies pursued by the Centre. It is not clear whether the retirement age limit will be raised for public sector employees also by a similar margin.

For the Centre it will entail an annual saving of the order of Rs 5,200 crore for each of the next two years.

 

This will give the government more flexibility in fiscal planning for the coming Union Budget. The move, which would immediately benefit a clutch of top bureaucrats including cabinet secretary Prabhat Kumar, revenue secretary N K Singh, telecom secretary A V Gokak, foreign secretary K Raghunath and commerce secretary P P Prabhu.

Other government officials to benefit from the BJP-led coalition governments largesse include Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman Ravi Kant and Central Board for Excise and Customs chairman D S Solanki. The list of beneficiaries in the event of a hike in the retirement age for public sector employees include Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd chairman B K Syngal and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd chairman S Rajagopal.

At an aggregate level, 90,000 employees in the civilian sector and about 55,000 employees in defence services stand to benefit. The government move will bring all officers on par with group D category who have a retirement age of 60 years.

However, there will be a freeze on all promotions at the level of additional secretary and below. There would also be a slowdown in annual recruitments to the central government services.

The government spokesman clarified that the cabinet decision would exclude all officers already on extension, after having completed the superannuation age of 58 years.

Raising the age limit was done with the purpose of the benefiting officers to complete the mandatory 33 years of service for availing full retirement benefits. Currently with the recruitment age at 28 years, many of the central government officers are denied this benefit, the spokesman said.

The Union cabinet has also decided to appoint a committee of secretaries to examine the recommendations of the Jain Commission which looked into the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

This committee will be assisted by another subcommittee. Along with this the government has also extended the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by another two years.

The cabinet has also decided that the original Prasar Bharathi Bill would be restored. The previous government had amended the provisions and issued a presidential ordinance.