Studied International Best Practice Before Increasing Retirement Age: Minister Of Finance For Khaber Pakhtunkhwa, Taimour Khan Jhagra

Minister of Finance for Khaber Pakhtunkhwa, Taimour Khan Jhagra said the decision about increasing upper limit of retirement age of the government employees from 60 to 63 was not taken overnight by the KP Government but after a thorough search, deliberations with the experts and studying international best practice in this regard

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Jun, 2019 ) :Minister of Finance for Khaber Pakhtunkhwa, Taimour Khan Jhagra said the decision about increasing upper limit of retirement age of the government employees from 60 to 63 was not taken overnight by the KP Government but after a thorough search, deliberations with the experts and studying international best practice in this regard.

Jhagra strongly defended increase in retirement age limit of government employees in his budget speech which he unfolded in the provincial assembly the other day. The KP Cabinet approved the proposal of pre mature retirement and made it conditional with 25 year service or fifty years age, whichever comes first.

Retirement is always connected with life expectancy, he said adding, in 1947 the life expectancy was 45 and the retirement age was fifty.

"We have thought about this long and hard, engaged with experts and studied international best practice", he explained. Similarly in 1973 the retirement age was enhanced to 55 whereas the life expectancy was remained 45 whereas today the life expectancy has jumped to 67, therefore it was necessary to increase retirement age.

He denied the notion that increase in retirement age would decrease employment opportunities for the youth and maintained that only 10,000 people retired out of a total labor force of 6.5 million which comes to 0.1 percent. These posts remained vacant every year as new inductions were made against the new post, he explained.

"We are going for record recruitment in next fiscal year", he told the house. As many as 30, 000 jobless would be provided jobs in settled districts and 17000 in the merged districts during next fiscal and the saving thus achieved would be utilized on creation of 40 to fifty thousand jobs in private sector, he explained.

Secondly promotion of not a single official and officer would be affected through this as they were working on promotion laws as well, he maintained. "We are laying foundation of new culture wherein the people would not desire for government jobs only. No country can develop sans involvement of private sector". He also announced increased in the minimum wage of the labor class to Rs17500 from Rs15000.