Hyderabad: The Telangana state government has issued strict instructions to all departments regarding treatment of retiring government employees.
All retirement benefits must be paid on the day of the retirement and a car should be arranged to drop the retiring employee home with dignity on her or his last working day, irrespective of the cadre, the government has ordered.
Retired employees have complained that their pensions and retirement benefits are not paid and they are made to run around offices for months and even years to claim it.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who reviewed the issue of post-retirement benefits to employees with officials of the finance department recently, took a serious view of departments not complying with these orders despite repeated reminders, and being ‘insensitive’ towards retiring employees.
“We should be sensitive towards retiring employees. They have rendered over 30 years of service. When they retire and leave the job, we should treat them with respect and dignity. Be it Group-I officers or Group-IV staff like junior assistants, junior accountants, or office attendants, the respective sections in all departments should bid a warm farewell, hand over all retirement benefits and arrange a car to drop them home with dignity,” Mr Rao said.
Following the Chief Minister’s directions, the finance principal secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao issued instructions to all departments in this regard.
The order stated: “Every head of department should undertake the work of preparing pension papers six months before the date on which a government servant is due to retire.”
In this regard, the government has issued instructions time and again for adherence to the above instructions. Even after such instructions, it is brought to the notice of the government that the percentage of cases received before the date of retirement is very low which is causing unnecessary delay in payment of pension to the pensioners even in cases where there are no disciplinary cases pending against them.
“As per the orders of CM, it is once again reiterated to comply with the existing instructions and forward pension papers six months before the retirement so as to ensure that the government servant gets terminal/pensionary benefits on last working day. All HoDs may take necessary steps on priority for payment of all the pensionary benefits on the retirement day and also arrange for a car to drop the retiring employee at home with dignity.”
