Andhra Pradesh promulgates ordinance to raise retirement age of state employees to 62 yrs

The Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy-led Andhra Pradesh government has promulgated the ordinance which was brought to increase the retirement age of government officials from 60 years to 62 years. The promulgation comes as no government order has been issued by the Reddy regime regarding the implementation that was supposed to happen on January 1.

Earlier this month, Chief Minister Reddy, in a meeting with various employees' unions in Amaravati had said the retirement age will be increased in addition to a new pay scale. 

Age increment to put additional burden on treasury: CM Reddy

During the meeting, CM Reddy had fixed the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) at 23% fitment, which was almost 9% more than 14.35% suggested by the Chief Secretary Committee. Talking about the increased fitment, Reddy had said that increased pay scale and dearness allowances (DA) will be effective from January 2022 although this would cause an additional burden on the state treasury. 

He said the burden will amount to Rs 10,247 crore on the state treasury and stated that the clearance of pending arrears like PF, GLI and leave encashments will conclude by April 2022. As for the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), the timeline of which was also laid by Reddy in the meeting, he said that a Cabinet sub-committee has already been laid and a decision regarding the same will be made by June.

The Andhra government seems to be following the same trajectory as K Chandrasekhar Rao's Telangana government which had also increased the retirement age to 61 years. In March 2021, KCR had announced that along with the increased retirement age, all state government employees and teachers will also receive a 30% increase in their salaries.  "I am happy to announce the good news to all state government employees and teachers that they will get 30% fitment and to this effect, the orders will be implemented from April 1, 2021", KCR had said. 

(Image: PTI)