Chandigarh: The Punjab government has decided to scrap its eight-year-old scheme that allowed government employees to seek a two-year extension in service beyond the retirement age of 58 years, a move that will cut five-six per cent of the workforce.
Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, who announced the decision during his budget speech Friday, told the media that the scheme will generate thousands of jobs for the unemployed youth in the state.
The move comes as Punjab readies for its next state election, slated for early 2022.
Giving details of the impact of the decision, Badal said the offer will not be available to those who retire after 31 March. Employees who already sought the extension or are currently serving their extended period will be retired in two phases.
The first set of employees — those above the age of 59 — will be retired forthwith on 31 March while the remaining will retire by 1 October.
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Moving jobs from old to the young
With the scrapping of the scheme, about five to six per cent of the total 3.5 lakh state employees are expected to retire, Badal said.
This means at least 17,500 employees will retire from their government posting.
“In six months, we would have a huge number of jobs available for the youth,” said the minister.
The service extension scheme was started during the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government in 2012. Employees were initially offered only a one-year extension, which was later increased to two. Employees of all categories of services were eligible to apply.
An employee would continue to draw their last pay, but pensionary and other retirement benefits would become available only after the end of the extension period.
Scrapping the scheme was among the first cabinet decisions made by the Amarinder Singh-run Congress government which came to power in 2017. However, at the time, the state couldn’t afford to retire thousands of employees at one go.
Badal said Punjab will incur a cost of about Rs 3,500 crore in retiring these employees, but the two-phase retirement plan will ease the burden on the state exchequer.
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Poll promise check
The Congress government, which came to power on the slogan ‘ghar ghar rozgaar’ (jobs for all), has been facing severe criticism for failing to fulfill its promise.
In his budget speech Friday, Badal reiterated his government’s commitment to providing jobs to every household in 2020-21.
“We aim to organise over 800 placement camps and help 1,50,000 applicants in gaining employment and provide assistance to 69,600 unemployed applicants through career counselling. To support the activities of Employment Generation and Training department, I propose an outlay of Rs 324 crore for this year. This is about 20 times increase over the Budget Estimates of Rs 17.52 crore in 2016-17, the last year of the previous government,” he said.
Punjab’s situation is in contrast with neighbour Haryana, where Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had taken the government job route to clinch last year’s parliamentary and assembly elections for the BJP. The government prided itself on employing almost 70,000 youth through a merit-based transparent process in their previous five-year tenure.
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Govt of punjab certinally took a very bad and baseless decision. In Haryana due to COVID 19 the retirement age is increased for 1 year. The Honest employees has been cheated by the Govt. It is bad decision for the employees who gave their whole time to the govt. And in reply govt. Gave them shock. It would certiannly affect the Congress in the upcoming elections and then the Govt. would realised about this bad and baseless decision. It should be taken back by the Govt. to make the good image in the eyes of public.
This is the most unfortunate decision. It is like pulling chain of a running train at its full speed. A lot of efficient trained hand would be forced to become idle. Why government is not thinking about population control and bring act for this. People who have planned future of their family based on present age of retirement would be affected very much. When average age of life has increased to 70 what these people would do after retirement. It will be the cause of so many social crimes.
What a brain wave to create employment opportunities. None but politicians came up with such perverse ideas. In Karnataka, during his first term, CM Yadiyurappa generally shifted retirement age from 58 years to 60 years, for the simple reason that the government had no money to pay retirement benefits to the retiriing employees. Now, another imbecile CM decides to reduce retirement age to 58 for creating employment opportunities. Actually, neither 58 nor 60 are correct age for retirement. People do not exactly become physically or mentally unfit for doing their jobs. Governments ought to emulate the West in this matter and postpone retirement age to 65 years.
It is an excellent decision by Punjab government. Central government should follow suit. This will ho a long way in getting some employment to youngsters.
The extension after superannuation should not be given however extraordinary efficient officer one may be.