Retirement age to be raised in TN

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is set to revise the retirement age for government employees from 58 to 60 years, despite stout opposition from the DMK, which has labelled it an "election centric" move.

A top source in the AIADMK confirmed that the decision would be announced soon, though he said it was currently in the proposal stage. Elections are scheduled to be held in Tamil Nadu early next year.

A statement released by DMK chief M Karunanidhi a few days back called the proposed move a "gimmick" by Jayalalithaa.

He said the chief minister was trying to appease government employees after having put them through a number of hardships since 2003, when they went on strike.

If the AIADMK is preparing to use the revision of retirement age as an election card, the DMK has already said the move will be detrimental to several thousand unemployed youth in state, especially since the ban on recruitment to all government posts was still on.

According to Krishnan, state secretary of the Tamil Nadu Government Employees Association (TNGEA), an independent Left-leaning employees union, there are about 120,000 posts lying vacant in various government departments since the AIADMK government imposed the ban on recruitment in November 2001.

Krishnan said over the last four years about 41,000 government posts had been abolished in Tamil Nadu, in keeping with the recommendations made by the Staff Expenditure and Reforms Commission, which had asked for double the number of seats to be abolished.

"Age revision cannot satisfy all. This is merely an attempt to postpone the immediate burden of granting retirement benefits to about 5,000 employees who will retire by the year 2006," Krishnan said.

The Tamil Nadu government has already announced several other controversial decisions with a view to capturing the vote bank.

Of these, the recent decision of the government to do scrap the common entrance test and improvement tests for engineering and medical college admissions, seems to have back fired with as many as 200 petitions filed against the move in the Madras High Court.

Jayalalithaa has also revoked the free power scheme for farmers and has announced a virtually "tax-less" budget a few months back with an eye on the elections.

The chief minister will be in New Delhi on Monday to attend a meeting of the National Development Council. She expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during her visit, as she has done in the past.