Higher retirement age drives employees to Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad: Initially, when AP was bifurcated the AP cadre preferred to continue work in the TS cadre. However, with AP increasing the retirement limit from 58 to 60 years Seemandhra employees changed their minds and favoured to continue in the AP cadre as two years of additional service would fetch nearly Rs 30 lakh benefits for each employee in terms of salaries and other incentives.

With the Telangana government ruling out an increase in the retirement age, even TS employees who were allotted to the AP government on a provisional basis in June last year, are now in favour of continuing in the AP-cadre to avail the retirement age benefit.

To counter this, Seemandhra employees, too, made a representation to the Kamalnathan Committee to give preference to nativity of employees before allotting them to a particular state.

This forced the committee to change the allotment norms, which was approved by both the state governments. Chief secretaries of AP and TS, Mr I.Y.R. Krishna Rao and Mr Rajiv Sharma, gave consent letters to this effect on behalf of the state governments.

As per the revised guidelines issued by the committee, “options” of employees will be considered only if their spouse is a civil services officer.

If couples of state cadre seek postings in their native state, it will be allotted. However, their option will not be considered if they are non-locals of the state they opt for.