Hyderabad: The Telangana government has ruled out raising the retirement age for government employees from 58 years to 60 years. Finance Minister Etela Rajender announced this in the Legislature on Thursday during Question Time.

Telangana state government is under tremendous pressure from government employees to raise the retirement age to 60 years after the government of Andhra Pradesh did in August. Mr. Rajender said if the retirement age, which would affect the prospects for new graduates and the unemployed in obtaining government jobs increases.

"Every year, around 8000-9000 employees retire in various departments. We want to offer these jobs to graduates and unemployed. If the retirement age is increased, youth and the unemployed will be affected," he added.

Mr. Rajender informed the House that to 4,15,931 employees are currently working in various departments in the state, including regular and contract and outsourcing. He said the Centre is yet to complete the distribution of staff between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh State, which has been delaying the process to make fresh recruitment campaigns in the state.

"Once the distribution of employees is more, we know the exact number of vacancies in each department. Based on that we will issue notifications via Telangana Public Service Commission," he said.