Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to enhance retirement age of government staff from 58 to 60 years is unlikely to burden the exchequer, experts opined.
They said the move will not only benefit the new state in the next couple of years, but also give it “experienced” hands (employees) to take AP forward on the path of progress. States like Goa, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Karnataka, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir have increased the retirement age of its staff.
In some foreign countries, the retirement age is different for men and women. In Iceland, the retirement age is 67 for both the genders, while it is 65 for men and 60 for women in Austria. Closer home in China, it is 60 and 55 years, 60 and 60 in Pakistan. Italy has a retirement age of 66 years for both men and women, and Israel has 67 as the limit for men and 62 for women.
Osmania General Hospital retired superintendent Dr Gopala Krishna who is himself 78 years old, supports Mr Naidu’s decision to enhance the retirement age limit. “The longevity of life has gone up and people even at the age of 70 are healthy. The AP CM will get precious two more years of experienced officials, which is crucial at this juncture for AP post bifurcation,” he said. It may be mentioned that late chief minister N.T. Rama Rao, founder of Telugu Desam had actually reduced the retirement age from 58 to 56 years, in a bid to redeem his election promise of providing government jobs to youth.
Keeping both the youth and elderly people in mind, Mr Naidu made it a point to announce that the TD government will not only provide government jobs to the youth, but also create employment opportunities in the private sector while signing the file enhancing the retirement age.
“It’s a win-win situation for both the employees and the state government. While employees will get two more years of service along with additional retirement and pensionary benefits for the extended period, the government will save thousands of crores of rupees it has to pay to the employees on their retirement. While the retirement and pension benefits to be saved by AP government would be more than what it has to shell down towards salaries of employees retiring in next two to three years,” a senior official said
While 1,200 employees are set to retire by month end, another 5,500 will retire by year end (December 31, 2014). In all, 57,000 employees are set to retire by 2017-2018. The figures are for the undivided state. The number of staff retiring in Telangana and AP is yet to be worked out.
Ditto is the case with financial implications on Andhra Pradesh.
Though there is pressure on Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao also to enhance the retirement age, sources close to him said the retirement age is unlikely to be changed immediately in Telangana due to pressure from the youth in waiting for government jobs.
Telangana Secretariat Employees Association leader Narender Rao said, in fact, they are opposing any proposal to enhance retirement age in Telangana. “WE are supporting the cause of youngsters and such will ask the Chief Minister to focus on providing government jobs to youth rather than enhancing the retirement age,” he said.
However, AP Secretariat Seemandhra Employees Forum Chairman Mr Murali Krishna hailed the decision of Naidu and said about 40,000 employees would benefit in the next 4 years and several thousands more in the long run due to enhancement of retirement age.
Though no formal orders were issued till late night on Tuesday, sources said the enhancement of retirement age would be made applicable to AP government employees from this month itself. Orders to this effect would be issued in a day or two.
