Bhubaneswar, Sept. 3: Unlike Charles Lamb’s The Superannuated Man, who “felt stunned, overwhelmed” and could only apprehend his “felicity” after retirement, Nayapalli resident Prasant Kumar Mohanty, 60, felt quite contrary to it.

For the past few months, the revenue department employee, who was on the verge of retirement, had been brooding over the boring and tedious life he was going to face.

“This month, I was to retire from government service. I was feeling bored. But now, I am happy that I got an engagement in the government even after the retirement,” said Mohanty.

Like Mohanty, many others, who were about to retire from government services, have heaved a sigh of relief as the state government has decided to raise the age limit for re-employment of its retired employees from 62 years to 65 years.

The re-employed employees, apart from getting an “engagement”, will also get a fixed monthly remuneration and allowances over and above the monthly pension. Besides, they can retain the government residential accommodation during the re-employment period.

Earlier, the government had enhanced the retirement age limit for its employees from 58 to 60 years.

The general administration department’s guidelines, pertaining to retired government servants, stated: “Officers, who have retired from government service on attaining the age of superannuation (60 years) and below the age of 65 years having good service records and are physically fit, shall be eligible to be considered for re-employment.” The circular was issued on August 27.

The re-employment will be made initially for two years and can be extended for subsequent two years with spells of one year each. The total period of four years will not be beyond 65 years age, says the guideline issued by the general administration department’s special secretary Niten Chandra.

Finance minister Pradip Kumar Amat, however, said he was not aware of the revised guideline. “I have no such information,” he said.

The move, however, has irked the casual employees working with the government on contract basis. Leader of the Casual Employees’ Association Surendra Swain said the move would badly affect the prospects of nearly 24 lakh educated but jobless youths in the state and thousands of casual employees working under various government organisations on contract basis. “These persons will not get regular government jobs as retired employees will be re-employed.”

Besides, the Opposition party thinks that the re-employment decision is going to take on the state’s unemployed youths.

According to the state government’s own admissions in December, the number of unemployed youths registered with various employment exchanges of the state has crossed 10.83 lakh.

Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra said: “The move will definitely harm the unemployed youths and give rise to frustration in their minds. Instead of giving re-employment to the retired officials, the government should first recruit the unemployed youths. Or else, the frustration among the youths may lead to lawlessness.”

On June 25, the state government enhanced the retirement age limit of its employees from 58 to 60 years, benefiting nearly five lakh employees. That time, Amat said the government had taken the decision in view of the fact that the average life span had increased.

The finance minister had earlier admitted that nearly 2.4 lakh government posts had fallen vacant over the past 10 years following retirement, resignation and dismissal of government employees. These posts could not be filled up due to recruitment freeze and pending court cases. The recruitment freeze was effected following signing of an MoU between the state government and the Centre in April 1999 in order to bring a fiscal discipline.