The
New Indian Express: Bhubaneswar: Sunday, 31 August 2014.
The Odisha
Government has directed that its administrative departments or undertakings can
not engage retired public servants beyond 65 years.
With the
departments adopting various policies to engage retired Government employees,
the State Government has come out with a set of fresh guidelines that seeks to
bring about uniformity in the process. The guidelines say that a retired
Government servant can be re-employed initially for two years which can be
extended by another two years with an annual appraisal of performance. At no
point can the officer be employed beyond four years or 65 years of age. The
present retirement age for Government employees is 60.
Officers
against whom departmental proceedings or criminal cases are pending or being
contemplated, those penalised for misconduct during the last five years of
their service will not be considered for re-employment.
The
re-employment, as per the new norms formulated by the General Administration Department,
will be made through an open advertisement followed by selection by a
committee. The pay of the re-engaged officials will be determined by the
appointing authority with approval of Finance Department.
During the
period of re-employment, the officers will be governed by the provisions of the
Odisha Government Servants’ Conduct Rules, 1957 and liable to be proceeded
against misconduct, omission and commissions as per the Odisha Pension Rules,
1992. With the State Government sticking to its cost-cutting measures by
resorting to minimum fresh recruitment, the Government establishments have been
feeling the pressure of workload and taking to hiring retired officers in last
few years.
In most
cases, the officers are hired back as officers-on-special duty with different
pay packages. Information sought through RTI Act reveals that the Finance
Department has re-employed 44 retired officers between 2009 and 2014 with
salary ranging from Rs 9,300 to Rs 10,000.
The last set
of guidelines to govern engagement of retired government servants was chalked
out in 1999.