Kathmandu, Sept 1: Political parties are divided over enforcing the retirement age for civil servants. The ruling CPN-UML and Nepali Congress have supported the government’s proposal to implement retirement at 59 in the year when the Civil Service Bill is converted into law, and at 60 from the following year.

At Monday’s meeting of the Law, Justice and Human Rights Committee, the CPN (Maoist Centre) and CPN (Unified Socialist) argued that a decision on the matter had already been made earlier and could not be reversed.

The House of Representatives had already passed the provision that civil servants retire at 58 in the year the bill becomes law, at 59 the next year, and at 60 the year after that. Maoist MP Suresh Alemagar said the decision had been finalized and endorsed.
“We had already reached a unanimous decision. The message of consensus has already gone out. But the government brought a different proposal due to pressure from some employees. Reversing a unanimous committee decision will create problems,” he said.

Unified Socialist MP Beduram Bhusal also insisted that an already unanimous decision cannot be overturned.
“The question is whether to reverse the decision or not. The ministry has brought a different proposal, so the discussion has dragged on,” he said. He added that since the decision was already made public, withdrawing from it now would raise doubts about their integrity.

Ruling parties, on the other hand, are ready to move forward with the government’s proposal. Congress MP Anand Prasad Dhungana said some compromises must be made when the government insists. “Let us enforce the 59-year retirement provision starting from the year the law takes effect,” he suggested.

UML MP Gopal Bhattarai also remarked that “accepting the government’s proposal would make things easier.”

People’s News Monitoring Service