Need for review of Nagaland Government Employees Retirement Act 2009

Retirement from Government Service is a service matter, thus the Supplementary Rules (S.R.) deal with the retirement age of the Government Servants. In the Pension Rules, Superannuation is concerned with the age of an employee because age determines the mental and physical activeness and capability of the government servant in the public service.

Therefore, as per the rules, the retirement age is fixed by the age and not by the length of service to avoid discrimination of the Government servants and to have effective administration without any interruption of the government functionaries.

Therefore, if the Government wants to change anything on superannuation age, it should be determined and fixed by age and not in the length of service at par with 35 years or whatsoever may apply. Otherwise, it will be termed as ‘forced retirement’ or ‘compulsory retirement’ under Pension Rules. In actual practice, such forced or compulsory retirement is imposed on Government servants only on committing of serious offences as a penalty.

But, contrary to the Rules, the Government of Nagaland has imposed premature retirement or forced retirement upon many of its employees without any fault on the part of the employees, thereby creating immense discrimination among the Government servants and triggering an array of functional problems for the State Government. 

Following are some of the consequent effects of the Nagaland Government Retirement Act 2009 from Public Service:-

1. Discrimination of Government Servants: 
On the implementation of this Act, some government servants retire at the age of 60 years while others tragically retire between the ages 53-56 years under the same Government Department which. Some of the clear-cut examples are the cases where while the father is still in service, his son has retired and where an elder brother still has 5-6 years left to serve in service while his younger brother has retired.

2. Functional problems for the Government:
The top services in Nagaland such as the N.C.S., N.P.S., Medical, Engineering and Allied Services recruit through the N.P.S.C., in bulk, from time to time. Such cadres of Services, at the time of retirement, would be normally holding the rank and status of the Administrative Head of the Department (A.H.O.D.), the Head of Department (H.O.D.) or such equivalent posts and status in various Government Departments.  But the plight of it is that, on application of the ‘length of service’, there may be a mass retirement of such officials or two to three thousands of teachers or police personnel in a single day. The question that arises here is that if A.H.O.D.s and H.O.D.s of 15-20 Government Departments retire together in a single day won’t the Government face serious crisis? There have been instances where in a certain Department of the Government of Nagaland, officials occupying positions from Dy. Director to Director retired together in the same day on application of the ‘length of service’. As a result, some Government Departments are utilizing the services of the retired employees both officially and unofficially at the cost of the state exchequer for want of experienced hands to run the Department/Government business.

3. Confusion in Government Administration:
In order to rectify the loop-holes of such Acts, the Government of Nagaland P & AR Department has issued several orders in connection with the superannuation cases, yet it hasn’t been set right till date as it is out of the prescribed Rules resulting in numerous court cases. Some have already won such court cases and continue to remain in service even after the attainment of 35 years in service.

4. Plague to the newly-appointed Government Employees:
The Government employees appointed after the application of this Retirement Act are rather unlucky employees because at the most they can be in service for 25-30 years only, with no benefit of Pension and G.P.F. Schemes.  The new Pension Schemes for which they are contributing 10% of their pay each month is still at a very confusing stage, no concrete rule has been made so far. The contribution from the employer/company is unknown and whether the provision of the advances /withdrawal is possible is yet to be ascertained. Therefore, the newly-appointed Government employees are certain to face multiple problems at the time of retirement such as children’s education problems, children’s employment problems, family accommodation problems and ultimately old-age problems.

In view of the above-cited problems confronting the Government of Nagaland and its employees, I sincerely appeal to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Nagaland to review this contradictory and confusing Retirement Act 2009 from the Public Services immediately in the best interests of the employees in general.

A Concerned Citizen,
Abraham K Woch
Bayavü Hill Colony, Kohima.



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