NEW DELHI: The Centre has asked Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) to conduct a data analysis exercise and assess “long term” age profile issues of combat units once the retirement age of their troops is raised from 57 to 60 years, in the wake of a court order to fix an existing anomaly. The move comes in the backdrop of a Delhi High Court order that called the current policy of different ages of superannuation in the four forces of CRPF, BSF, ITBP and SSB as “discriminatory and unconstitutional.”
In a meeting featuring senior officials of Union Home Ministry and CAPFs, various implications once these four forces also have the retirement age of all its personnel at 60 years like the CISF and Assam Rifles, sources said. The ministry has asked the forces to conduct data analysis and furnish information to it by the next week.
Next meeting on this issue is scheduled to be held on March 6. The ministry has asked CAPF chiefs to assess the impact of the proposed decision on “future” recruitments, age profile of personnel deployed for guarding borders and deputation of these men and women to Special Forces like the NSG, Special Protection Group and the NDRF, senior officials privy to the development said.
It has also asked CAPFs to analyse “incremental increase” in manpower once the retirement age is enhanced and also look at cases of those troops graded under the low medical category owing to injury in action or any disease.
The CAPFs are deployed to undertake a variety of security roles in the country, ranging from guarding borders to conducting anti-Naxal operations and combating terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. On January 31, the Delhi High Court gave four weeks’ time to the ministry to implement its directive that ordered for uniform retirement in all CAPFs. According to the present policy, all personnel in Central Industrial Security Force and Assam Rifles retire at the age of 60, while in the rest four forces — BSF, CRPF, SSB, ITBP — personnel in the ranks of constable to commandant (equivalent to senior superintendent of police) retire at 57, while those above them retire after 60.
Data analysis
The Union Home Ministry has asked the forces to conduct data analysis and furnish information to it by the next week. The next meeting on the matter is on March 6