Why must government employees remain separate?

It is welcome that the Government has decided to unify the pension age in the state’s public sector institutions to sixty years. One and a half lakh people will get benefit from this decision. This is not the main thing. This decision will, without delay, be applicable to the Electricity Board, KSRTC, and Water Authority, where the most number of people are employed. After this, the order will affect the five lakhs government employees and teachers.

This demand has been put forward by service organizations for a long time. However, their demand was rejected by consecutive governments on flimsy grounds without any logic.

Currently, the pension age is 56. Earlier, it was 55. Even the Pay Commission had suggested raising the pension age. The government was not interested to implement this demand because they feared the backlash from youth organizations cutting across party lines. The youth organizations say that if the pension age is raised it will reduce the opportunities for the youth to get a government job. However, they fail to understand that the state with the youngest pension age is Kerala.

The average life expectancy in India has now crossed seventy years. In developed countries, those who are in their sixties are actively participating in the labor force. But in Kerala, those who are healthy and skilled persons are getting retired at fifty-six years of age. The youth organizations that demand that the pension age must not be raised fail to understand the reality of the situation.

The government is helpless to provide jobs to every individual who has registered their name at the employment exchange. A maximum of 20,000 persons are recruited each year through PSC. Usually, the problem of unemployment is understood to be a person without a government job.

An expert committee is constituted to study the problems when the pension age is unified in KSEB, KSRTC, and Water Authority. It is sure that the pension age of these public institutions will also be raised, without much delay. Then the reasons against raising the pension age of government employees will lose their significance.

Many expert committees and pay commissions have suggested raising the pension age. There was a suggestion to raise the pension age, one year at a time from 56 to 60. It is logically better to raise the pension age to sixty at one go.

The benefit of the government’s order will be received by the employees of 122 public sector organizations of the government, and six statutory corporations. Some of the institutions already have a pension age fixed at 60. It is good that the one-and-a-half government employees who were to retire at 58 years have got it extended by two years. This benefit must be reflected in the growth of these institutions.

It is also decided to introduce grading for promotions and transfers. The benefits will be given after classifying public sector institutions into four based on their performance. The public sector organizations must develop effectively to shed their image of being white elephants. Let us hope the new decision helps in it.