Kerala govt. dismisses possibility of raising retirement age

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 26 (ANI): The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala has dismissed the possibility of raising the retirement age from the present 55 to 58.

Replying to a question related to the issue in the state assembly on Thursday, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said, "The government has not thought about it."

The government-appointed Public Expenditure Review Committee had recently recommended raising the super annual age of government employees and teachers to 58 in the first phase and to 60 in the second.

The committee had advised of increasing the retirement age as it could help the state government channelise a significant part of the revenue expenditure for other productive purposes.

It also noted that even for healthy and experienced employees who retired from the service at 55 years, the government had to pay pension for the next 25 to 30 years without getting any work done in return.

Stating it was not a good tendency to receive pension without doing any work when they were in good health, the committee had observed that 90 per cent of the salary amount would be required for providing pension. (ANI)