Cabinet to decide on FF govt employees� retirement age
Public administration minister to place report today
DEEPAK ACHARJEE
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Cabinet will decide today whether or not to raise the retirement age of the freedom fighter government employees. The public administration ministry has prepared a report to raise the retirement age of those government employees who are freedom fighters, and the proposal would be placed at the Cabinet meeting for its decision, sources in the public administration ministry said. The Cabinet meeting would be held at the Secretariat, with the PM in the chair.
Additional secretary Md Ibrahim Hossain Khan told The Independent that they have sent a report to the Cabinet Division to place it before the Cabinet meeting today, in accordance with the apex courts instructions in this regard. Its up to the Cabinet to take a decision on the issue of raising the retirement age of the freedom fighter government employees, he said. On November 16, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld a High Court verdict, which had ordered placing a proposal before the Cabinet for increasing the retirement age of freedom fighters from 57 to 65 years in government jobs. According to the sources, the Cabinet is likely to raise the retirement age of its employees by two years. For those government employees who are freedom fighters, the retirement age will be raised from the current 60 to 62 years, in accordance with a court verdict. The retirement age of other incumbent government employees would be raised to 61 years from the existing 59 years. The sources added that the Public Service Retirement Act (Amendment) would be further amended if the retirement age of government employees is increased.
However, senior officialsincluding joint secretaries and additional secretaries working in different ministries and divisionshave opposed this, saying that the government should not increase the retirement age of the freedom fighter government employees and even of the serving government employees.
If the government does raise the retirement age of the employees, it would create impediments for the entry of new employees, they argued. In 2000, Shamsul Haque, former secretary and chief of the administrative reforms committee, had recommended that the retirement age of government employees be raised from 57 to 59 years, sources said. On January 14, 2015, the High Court passed the order to raise the retirement age of freedom fighters to 65 from 57 years.
