Maharashtra extends retirement age of health department officials to 62

Maharashtra Chief Minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday announced a two-year extension in service for civil surgeons and other senior officials in the health department after their retirement age of 60 years. The decision, made in view of the coronavirus pandemic, was cleared by the state cabinet chaired by CM Uddhav Thackeray. The move is aimed at ensuring the availability of sufficient human resources to provide health services.

"The state has decided 62 years of age would be the cut-off line for any official to serve in the health department. The cabinet today cleared the proposal to give extension to senior officials, civil surgeons in public health department," Tope said.

"It means that the official turning 62 years of age this year will retire from service in the current year itself. But the officials who were earlier given a one-year extension after they turned 60 - the regular age of retirement - will get extension for another year and will retire once they turn 62 years," an official from the health department clarified.

Speaking about the ongoing recruitment in the health department, Tope said, "The state has filled 899 posts last week. There will be a fresh advertisement in the next four days for filling at least 1,000 posts of doctors and specialists. The pending report of police probing alleged irregularities during the written exam of class C and D has been received. The state will take appropriate steps to fill the positions."

Regarding the Covid situation in the state, he added, "The state has been reporting around 6,000 to 8,000 cases on a daily basis since the last one month. However, out of the 1,00,004 active cases in the state, 92 per cent are in 10 districts alone."

"Apart from the metro cities like Mumbai and Pune, higher number of infection cases are reported in Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and now Ahmednagar. There are level-3 restrictions in place in the entire state now. The decision to issue more relaxations will be taken by the chief minister himself," he noted.