Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan here on Friday announced increasing the retirement age of the State government employees to 62 years from the current 60 years. He made the announcement while speaking to media persons here on Friday. However, he did not disclose details of this decision. There are about five lakh regular government employees in the state. The opposition Congress, accusing the government of deceiving the state’s unemployed youth by increasing the retirement age, demanded that such youth be given a berozgari bhatta (unemployment allowance).
To a query on the Supreme Court’s order related to the promotion of state government employees. Chouhan said, Several state government employees are not able to get promotion due to the apex court’s order in a case related to ‘reservation in promotion’ pending with the SC. We will not allow any employee to retire without him getting his due promotion. This is why we have decided to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62 years.
The state government had made a provision for reservation for SC/ST employees in promotion, which was set aside by the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
The state’s appeal against the order is pending in the SC with the latter ordering a status quo. This, officials said, has kept on hold promotions of state government employees. Chouhan expressed hope that SC would take a decision on it within next two years. Attacking the government, the opposition Congress said the decision was not going to help employees.