A recent decision of the Himachal Pradesh Cabinet to extend the retirement age of government employees by a year to 59 may affect the prospects of young people looking for public sector jobs. The State has 1.1 million registered educated unemployed youth.
With little or no industrialisation or modernisation, the most rural State of India has the government as its biggest employer. But instead of reducing the retirement age, the State government has increased it as if there is a dearth of manpower, youngsters complain.
Even employees’ organisations are divided on this post-election move of the government.
The Congress suffered a humiliating drubbing in the Lok Sabha election and if raising the retirement age is meant for the powerful employees’ lobby, it should have come before the election, Congress-affiliated State employees’ organisations say.
The government’s rider that “the extension [of the retirement age] for the employee would depend on the satisfaction of the government” has further baffled the employees. They fear that it would now be a pick-and-choose exercise meant for the loyal employees of the Congress leadership.
The intelligentsia say this clause will result in massive politicisation of the services and creation of a committed bureaucracy. Anybody representing or nursing a contradictory ideology is going to suffer. It is another tyrannical tool in the hands of politicians, along with transfers and placements. It will now be impossible for employees to oppose the government.
The hill State has one of the highest ratios of government employees in the country and they are considered a powerful lobby. “No-one can afford to annoy them,” is a popular phrase here.
A section of employees feel that the decision was taken to defer payment of retirement liabilities of Rs. 650-700 crore due to 6,000-7,000 retiring employees.
