The central government has ordered the central government organisations must review and make the list of employees who have either completed 30 years of service or completed 55 years of age and give a mandatory retirement.





This order may adversely affect around 3 Lakhs Indian Railways employees. Around 18000 employees in Southern Railway will be affected. So, the public and people from various segments have insisted that this order must be cancelled.





The central government has decided to review the performance of the employees who have either completed 30 years of service or completed 55 years of age.





The secretary of the central government Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Suryanarayana Jha released the above government order on 20th June.





This order will apply all cadres of employees in the A, B, and C Groups.





The order also notifies that all the central government establishments must send detailed monthly reports of how many central government employees were reviewed and how many were recommended for mandatory retirement.





Further, this is viewed as a step towards strengthening the administration under the Basic Rules 1972 Section 56(J).





The procedure for the above review must follow the orders released during the years 2014, 2015, and 2017.





It has been informed that according to the above Acts and orders, the employees working in the central government or public sector organisations who have completed 30 years of service or completed 56 years of age and the disqualified central government/public sector employees must be given termination notice either after 3 months of further employment or immediately by offering the 3 months’ salaries with all allowances must be given compulsory retirement.





A review conducted for 3 Lakhs Railway employees





There are 47 Lakhs of employees working in the central government and the public sector organisations. Especially, because of the above order, about 3 Lakhs employees in Indian Railways are very likely to be adversely affected by this order.





The Deputy General Secretary of the Southern Railway Employees Association, Manoharan, shared in this regard:





‘Presently, there are 1246500 employees in Indian Railways. Out of this, 11500 employees are registered as Government Gazette officers.





A review of the performance of around 3 Lakhs Indian Railways Employees has to be carried out as per thehe above proposed mandatory retirement order.





The central government considers that in order for the privatisation of many industrial sectors, it is necessary to drastically reduce the number of employees. It has taken up the above proposal of mandatory retirement as one of the initiatives in this regard.





If the retirement age is reduced as 58, it may not be possible to pay all the retirement benefits in one lot. However, under the proposed order it is possible to give the retirement benefit in a gradual manner. Hence, this central government proposal of review of qualification of the central government employees must be cancelled!’





Presently, there are a total of 102484 employment openings in the Southern Railways. However, only 82292 employees are currently working. Thus, there are 20193 vacancies right now.





As per the order for the review of termination of the central government employees who have either completed 30 years of service or 55 years of age, there are prospects of around 18000 employees to be reviewed and issued immediate termination orders.





The above order will be sent to the Chief Officer of the Department of the Railway Employee Welfare. Subsequently, this Chief officer will send the above orders to each and every division/zone.





Thus, there are prospects of the review of the employees in the next 2 months under the above proposal and the gradual issue of orders of compulsory/mandatory retirement.





While enquiring with a Railway official in this regard, he shared that if this is ordered proposed for all central government employees, it will also be applicable to all Railway employees as well! So, there is no scope to observe or comment on this!





The General Secretary of the Federation of the All India Train Passengers associations, Naian. Masilamani shared:





‘As at present, there are already some vacancies of employment which have not been filled up. In this circumstance, if the above proposal is carried out, it would adversely affect the Railways. Reduction in employees may be justified if there is a substantial reduction in the number of train passengers! However, in the present conditions, the number of train passengers is indeed reasonably ok and as such, any proposal to reduce the number of employees will not be acceptable as it will lead to serious social issues. So, the central government must immediately withdraw this proposal.`



