Retirement age hike decision is in State's interest: Chief Minister KCR

Hyderabad: The Telangana State Assembly on Thursday passed the bill enhancing retirement age of teaching faculty from 58 years to 65 years in government medical and dental colleges.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao stated that this decision was taken in the State's interest as there was experienced staff crunch in medical colleges in Telangana.

Introducing the Telangana Public Employment (Regulation of Age of Superannuation) Ordinance 2019 in Assembly on Thursday, the Chief Minister said shortage of experienced teaching faculty was a major problem faced by many States in the country.

After MCI took a decision that a professor's services could be utilised for up to 70 years, many States revised the retirement age limit between 62 to 70 years.

Accordingly, Telangana decided to enhance the retirement age from 58 years to 65 years, the Chief Minister added.

He said around 50 senior professors had retired in the last few months and taking up new recruitments would not address this issue and hence age hike decision was taken.

There is a risk of losing PG seats if there is not enough faculty and also academic studies of medicos would also be hit.

He pointed out that the Telangana government had opened four new medical colleges in Mahbubnagar, Siddipet, Suryapet and Nalgonda and age hike decision stands to benefit these colleges.

He also stated that of the sanctioned 2,803 Assistant Professor posts only 1,424 posts are filled at present.

The Chief Minister later tried to allay the concerns expressed by Akbaruddin Owaisi (MIM), Mallu Bhatti Vikramarkha (Congress ) and Raja Singh (BJP).

The leaders also supported the decision but sought more clarity on how the government would protect interests of young doctors, working as Assistant and Associate professors.

The Chief Minister said recruitment would be taken up to fill Assistant Professor posts and all those who have attained seniority in Assistant and Associate professor posts would be promoted through CAS (Career Advancement Scheme).

He also assured that various issues of private medical colleges including fees would be addressed and directed Health Minister Eatala Rajender to hold a meeting with college managements in this regard.

If needed, K Chandrashekar Rao said he would also intervene to resolve all issues concerning private medical colleges.