New Delhi, April 26: The Centre on Sunday dismissed a report which claimed it may reduce the retirement age of central government employees. Speaking to news agency ANI, Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, no proposal to slash the retirement age of central government was discussed by the Centre. Jitendra Singh described the report as "motivated mischief". Viral Message Claiming ICMR Will Study Immunity of Indigenous Assamese As Not a Single Case of COVID-19 Found in Them Is Fake, Here Is the Fact Check by PIB.

"The central government is mulling to make significant change to retirement age for those central government employees, who have attained the age of 50 and above," the report claimed. "Those employees will get pension payment order (PPO) on the day of retirement but retirement benefits will be made in the post coronavirus economic crisis period," it added citing "overcrowded office" during the coronavirus outbreak as one of the reasons.

Dismissing the report, Singh said: "There has been no such move at all at any level in govt, nor was it ever contemplated. It has been reiterated time and again. I don't know how this motivated, mischief comes up again and again. There is no move to reduce the retirement age of govt employees." Earlier today, the fact check section of the Press Bureau of India (PIB) also clarified that no such move was being discussed.

The report claimed government offices don't have enough space and social distancing cannot be followed. Hence, all central government departments have been instructed to ensure that more than one-third of employees, below the level of deputy secretary, are not called to offices to avoid crowding and to ensure safe social distancing norms, it added. Several employees have been asked to work from home.

But adapting work from home culture is not easy for central government employees, the report claimed. "That older employees also find it harder to adapt to modern technology, which is must required to adapt work from home culture. This type of employees are neither essential nor able to work from home, and these are the employees who are most at risk of losing their jobs once the lockdown is lifted," it said. "We know reducing the retirement age to 50 years seems a bit extreme, but drastic times call for drastic measures," a source was quoted as saying.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 26, 2020 04:17 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).