THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government has enhanced the retirement age of employees of state public sector units, except three, to 60. The KSEB, KSRTC and KWA are the excluded ones. The enhancement will not be applicable to employees who have already retired.
The government order is based on the report of an expert committee appointed for the formulation of a common framework for pay structure in PSUs. It lists certain criteria for the PSUs for implementing pay revision. One is that the statutory audit of the organisation should be up to date. It will be based on the revised classification of the PSU as per the norms fixed based on audited accounts.
The unit should be profit-making for three years consecutively before the submission of pay-revision proposals. Also, the organisation should have executed an MoU with the administrative department concerned. The PSUs will be classified into four categories — diamond, gold, silver, and bronze — based on their total score. Salary promotion and transfer will be linked to the categorisation.
There will be fixed parameters to determine the score for categorisation. The classification will be reviewed by the Bureau of Public Enterprises once in three years. Based on the periodical review, those recording faster growth will be upgraded to the higher category and those showing a steep decline will be downgraded. The revised pay scales would be implemented subject to the condition that the additional financial impact in the year of implementing the revised pay package for board-level executives and below-board-level executives should not be more than 20 pc of the average profit before tax of the last three financial years.
This means the PSU should be continuously in profit for the last three financial years. If the affordability criteria are satisfied, the expenditure on account of pay revision should entirely be borne by the PSU out of its earnings and no budgetary support will be provided by the government, the order said.