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The State Government will ‘take in its stride' the retirement of an unprecedented 23,000 employees on Thursday with ‘minimum disruption or dislocation' in executive or administrative functions.
A top Government official told Business Line that the State Government has been preparing itself to square up with ‘the inevitable' after taking a policy decision to fix March 31 as the common retirement date earlier last year.
The Chairman of the State Public Service Commission (PSC), Mr K. V. Salahuddin, also appeared to largely agree with the Government, saying most of the vacancies would be in the lower cadre.
The PSC have made note of the list of vacancies and recruitment will began after Government gives its approval to fill them. Speaking to Business Line, Mr Salahuddin said that any worry that the mass retirement would affect governance, especially during the pendency of the Election Commission code of conduct for States going to polls, would be misplaced.
Meanwhile, those who retired on Thursday included 10,000 teachers, 1,000 police officials and 210 staff from the State Secretariat.
The list also included 300 officials, including doctors from the Department of Health, 50 from the PSC itself and 500 from the Department of Revenue.
Prior to making March 31 as the common retirement date, employees usually retired from service on attainment of 55 years.
The employees could continue in service till the end of that month if their date of birth did not fall on the first of any month. Only those whose dates coincided with the first of any month need to retire the previous day.
Under the new dispensation, all those who attained 55 years anytime during the financial year would be able to continue in service till March 31.
Some of the employees managed to get nearly a year's extension.
In the past, teachers who attained 55 years anytime during the academic year were allowed to continue in service till the end of the academic year in order to avoid any dislocation in the academic sector.
The Finance Minister, Dr T. M. Thomas Isaac, has said that the Treasury has enough money to pay off the retirement benefits.
He also said that an outgo of Rs 3,000 crore is expected and the Treasury would retain a ‘tidy surplus' by the end of the last day of the financial year.
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