The Kerala cabinet on Wednesday put on hold the Finance Department’s contentious order increasing the retirement age in State-run public sector units to 60 years.
Strong political headwinds and severe resistance from the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) youth organisations nudged the government to rescind the move.
A terse statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office said: “The cabinet has frozen the order increasing the pension of State public sector unit employees to 60. It will decide future measures later”.
Leader of Opposition, V. D. Satheesan, described the cabinet’s decision as a half-measure to pull the wool over the public eye.
He said the government should revoke the inherently flawed order in its entirety instead of keeping the patently anti-youth decision in abeyance.
Opposition’s victory: Satheesan
Nevertheless, Mr. Satheesan said, the government’s abrupt and dramatic reversal of its stated position was undeniably an opposition victory.
Mr. Satheeshan also pointed at a perceived dichotomy between DYFI’s agitation against unemployment in New Delhi and the left youth organisation’s muted response to the Kerala government’s order that, at a stroke, hugely whittled down the chances of lakhs of educated youth landing a government job.
“DYFI national president A.A.Rahim, MP, should ask the Kerala Chief Minister about the promised jobs instead of agitating in New Delhi”, he said.
A recent Finance Department order to regularise wage structure in State-run PSUs by uniformly enhancing the retirement age to 60 had landed the LDF government in a quandary.
The recommendations made by an expert committee headed by the Chairman of the Restructuring and Internal Audit Board (RIAB) had informed the controversial order.
Notably, the hike in retirement age did not apply to the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), Kerala Water Authority (KWA), and the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC).
The government found itself on the back foot after the CPI-affiliated youth organisation, the AIYF, said the order dashed the hopes of unemployed youth and contravened the LDF’s election manifesto. Soon DYFI and BJP’s Yuva Morcha echoed a similar view.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) opposition said the Finance Department had arbitrarily imposed the order without considering Kerala’s social realities and sans political consensus.
For one, Kerala had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Moreover, the government was the biggest employer in the State. By hiking the retirement age to 60, the government had slyly imposed a recruitment ban.
The UDF alleged that the spectre of substantial pension and gratuity payouts from the State’s depleted public exchequer had compelled the government to sacrifice youth welfare at the altar of financial expediency.
Congress and BJP had cautioned the LDF administration to brace itself for anti-government protests if it did not revoke the order.
