Although he has supported the demand of raising the retirement age of State employees from the current 60 to 62 years, there was no such proposal under the State Government’s consideration at the moment, outgoing Madhya Pradesh Chief Secretary disclosed.
Speaking to media persons here on Sunday, State’s top bureaucrat officer R Parasuram, who is to retire from service on Monday after a six-month extension, said, “I personally believe that if the retirement age of the State Government employees is raised to 62, it will not have any adverse effects as the average age of the people in the country has increased because of advanced medical facilities.”
“However, at present the State Government has no such proposal under its consideration.” Parasuram, who has now been appointed as the Commissioner of the Madhya Pradesh Election Commission, said. This was a policy matter and any decision to this effect would be taken by the State Cabinet, he added.
He said that the age of retirement for school, college and university teachers as well as doctors in the State has been raised by the Government earlier.
Replying to a query on RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan panel terming Madhya Pradesh as one of the “least developed states” in India, Parsuram admitted that the State was termed as backward along with other Hindi-speaking States.
He, however, said that because of the Government’s continued efforts the State has come out of the BIMARU tag.
BIMARU has a resemblance to a Hindi word ‘Bimar’ which means sick. The acronym was used to describe the State of economy in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
On the allegations that MP Government has got “huge” amount of central funds during UPA rule, while it had received lesser amount during the NDA regime, he said, “Under the federal structure, the money is allocated to the States under a fixed formula and these funds are those collected by the Centre from the States in the form of taxes.”
“Therefore, no question of allegation and counter- allegations arises on the issue,” he said.