What is wrong with raising pension age?

The final report submitted to the government by the Eleventh Pay Commission recommended that the pension age for employees and teachers be raised from 56 to 57 years. As in other states, we have repeatedly pointed out that raising the pension age to fifty-eight or sixty would not pose any danger. The impediment to raising the pension age is utterly irrational arguments that the average vacancy of 15,000 or 20,000 vacancies in the government service a year is the solution to total unemployment. Youth organizations and politicians who are only interested in the vote bank are blindly opposing the increase without realizing the real facts. It is true that the number of unemployed educated people is higher here. But how many of them get an appointment a year? That number will not be even one percent. Millions of young people are finding employment in other sectors. Kerala is home to the largest PSC in the country. Yet everyone knows the pace of appointments to government service. The recommendation of the Pay Commission to reduce the size of the PSC should also be given top priority.

Recommendations other than the pay revision in the report of any pay commission, no matter how valuable they may be, are often overlooked. Many of the recommendations made by the Pay Commission are aimed at raising the standard of government services in addition to paying higher salaries. But the government is only implementing the pay reform under pressure from service organizations. Other recommendations are pushed to some corner in the Secretariat. The eleventh pay commission recommendations are likely to suffer the same fate as the previous ten pay commission reports. But when three-quarters of the state's revenue is spent on salaries alone, the good recommendations put forward by the Pay Commission to help improve government service should be given due consideration.

Protests erupted soon after the report came out against the pay commission's recommendation to set up a recruitment board for job placements in aided schools and colleges. There is no denying the bribery that managements accumulate through private school-college appointments, which are known to be the biggest source of black money and bribery. The bizarre system of management hiring and government paying salaries that leak the public exchequer must be controlled. The measures taken to control appointments were not effective. The government has to take steps to control the recruitment at aided institutions by at least considering the skyrocketing salaries.

The Commission has made a number of recommendations regarding the service. Part of that is to avoid posts that are out of date and to have five working days a week, promotions based on excellence and reduced holidays. Steps should be taken to implement the recommendations that require no extra cost. While it is gratifying that salaries have risen significantly every five years, people’s complaints about service persist. Many of the recommendations in the Pay Commission report are for service improvement which deserves consideration.