The VRS package for central government employees cleared by the Cabinet yesterday has decided to allow surplus employees to join the private sector without needing any prior permission from the government.
High level sources said this was one of the proposals put up to the cabinet by the department of personnel.
The reason for the relaxation is based on the premise that if the government cannot absorb them then it should not object to their joining somewhere else. In addition the scheme has allowed ministries to declare sections of employees in a department surplus instead of having to declare the entire department surplus.
While it will take some time for the government to come out with the operational details, sources said the ex-gratia to be paid to the surplus employees will be paid at one go instead of being spread out over several years unlike many of the public sector banks, several of which had spread out their liability over a few years.
However the entire focus of the VRS package seems to be to retain the younger employees as the government reckons that it will be easier to retrain them.
Sources said though the government has not put any qualifying number of service years to be eligible for VRS, since the pension rules have not been changed employees with less than 15 years of service will get only ex-gratia as their terminal benefits.
The current rules say that an employee can draw pension only after putting in 15 years of service, which means that the assumption of the VRS is to encourage the older lot to opt for it. They also said that the road map drawn by the Geethakrishnan committee is expected to be the basis on which the ministries will decide on the job cuts.
