Financial implications of the enhancement of retirement age by one year and the number of employees to be benefited with the decision has been worked out by the Finance Department and the same was submitted to the Chief Secretary before formation of the seven member committee. Fearing the increase in age by two years was likely to outrage the educated unemployed youth, sources, said the government decided to chose the middle path. “As the decision to increase the retirement age will be having lesser financial implications and will be having almost negligible implications in creating employment opportunities including creation of vacancies within the existing structure and on the other hand will be beneficial for the state employees, the government has decided to go ahead for consultations with the representatives of the state employees” sources said. However, the final decision has to be taken ahead of annual Budget Session in the state, necessary to raise the expenditure in the budget.
Committee is expected to meet very soon which will be followed by several rounds of meetings with the representatives of the employees. in mid January to deliberate on the issue. The committee is expected to submit the final report to the government by the end of February and by then the government will be able to deliberate upon all the connected issues” sources added. The enhancement in the retirement age is one of the key demands of the Employees Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) which had negotiated with the government on number of issues including release of arrears to them on account of implementation of the 6th pay panel report, removal of pay anomalies, conversion of COLA into DA and regularization of daily wagers. Facing growing unemployment, state government has time and gain reiterated that government job is not the only solve the problem, asking youth to seek their career in private sector.
(EKNN)
