Left youth organisations in the State have come out strongly against the government move to raise the retirement age of State employees and teachers.
A delegation of Left youth organisation leaders called on Chief Minister Oommen Chandy here on Friday and submitted a memorandum to him urging the government not to tamper with the age of superannuation in view of the high rate of unemployment in the State.
The delegation, comprising Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) national president P. Sreeramakrishnan, State secretary T.V. Rajesh, All India Youth Federation (AIYF) State secretary K. Rajan, Revolutionary Youth Front State secretary Salim P. Chacko, R. Rajesh, MLA, and AIYF State joint secretary Kalady Jayachandran, told the Chief Minister that any move to peg the retirement age at a higher level would dash the hopes of the jobless youth for a government job.
The State, they pointed out, had around 43 lakh educated unemployed youth. They were faced with joblessness on account of the sharp fall in jobs in the organised sector. For instance, the number of jobs in Central services in the State had fallen from 1,01,000 to 70,000. Every year, around 50 lakh youth applied for government jobs. If the government were to raise the retirement age of State employees, it would prove a setback for all those who were waiting for an entry into the State service, they said.
After the meeting with the Chief Minister, the DYFI State secretary said in a statement that Mr. Chandy had told the delegation that no final decision had been taken in the matter and that the government had only held discussions with the employees' organisations regarding rectification of anomalies in the unification of their retirement age.
Mr. Rajesh said that the Chief Minister had also assured the delegation that a meeting of youth organisations would be convened at the earliest to discuss issues such as retirement age, delay in reporting of vacancies, and creation of new employment opportunities and that the government would not take any arbitrary decision on the question of altering the age of superannuation.
