Hyderabad: Even as Andhra Pradesh government employees rejoice over the enhancement of the retirement age from 58 to 60 years, employees of public sector corporations are sore over being left in the lurch.
Hundreds of employees, belonging to the Andhra public sector corporations, like the Road Transport Corporation, retired on Monday at the age of 58. The employees’ trade unions are complaining about the ‘step-motherly treatment’ by the government.
The AP Assembly recently amended the Andhra Pradesh Public Employment Act, increasing the superannuation age from 58 to 60. Telangana employees still retire at the age of 58. However, no direction has been issued by the AP government on the fate of public sector corporation employees.
Government employees are those who draw salaries from the government treasury. Employees of corporations, like RTC, draw salaries from the corporations’ own income and are not paid from the treasury.
“Usually the government issues a direction saying corporations can adopt the same rules and corporations follow suit. However, nothing of that sort has been announced by the government so far,” M. Janardhan Reddy, secretary, All-India State Government Employees Federation, said.
The contentious issue, however, is that these corporations are included in the 10th Schedule of the Reorganisation Act, which is jointly functional in both states, for employees from both Telangana and AP.
Officials said the legislation was only for state government employees.
“Employees of corporations are not state government employees. They don’t draw salaries from the treasury. They are corporation employees so this enhancement of superannuation is not applicable to them,” a senior government official said. In the past, when retirement age was reduced from 58 to 55, and then enhanced from 55 to 58, the government issued a specific directive asking corporations to adopt the same.
