"No, there is no such plan. There is no thinking at all. The status quo will continue," Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar told PTI when asked whether there is any move in this regard.
Currently, the retirement age of Central government employees is 60 years. Chandrasekhar said there have been rumours that it would be raised but it was nothing but a "wishful thinking".
"I tried to find out. But there is no file in (Department of) Expenditure, no file in DoPT (Department of Personnel and Training). There is nothing. It is more of a wishful thinking," he said in an interview.
The Cabinet Secretary also said the government has no plans to bring an uniformity in the retirement age among the state government employees.
"The states will decide their own retirement age," he said. All states have their own retirement age - starting from 55 years (Kerala) to 60 years (
Asked whether the government would resort to job cuts or stop recruitment like the private sector in the wake of the global financial crisis, the Cabinet Secretary made it clear that no such step will be taken.
"No, not at all. The government will have to necessarily keep activity going. We cannot really stop exercise. We want as much activity as possible. Government is not going to scale down," he said.
On corruption, Chandrasekhar admitted that corruption does take place and it happens due to crisis in certain areas.
"I think corruption does take place. Not only in
The Cabinet Secretary said the country must have a strong information system and there should be awareness among people to eliminate the menace.
"There should be strong public awareness. When public awareness is higher, the level of corruption is low. Literacy rate is by and large going up. It helps checking corruption. Media is also active, particularly the vernacular press is very active against corruption. They are very vigilant," he said.
Source : Economic times
