Govt nurses to now retire at 62; finance dept issues notification

Kolkata: The State Finance department has issued a notification, increasing the retirement age of nurses from 60 years to 62 years.

It has been stated in the notification that the move has been made to ensure proper healthcare to the people of Bengal through government hospitals, health centres, etc.

The step has been taken up after it was noted that "there is acute shortage of nursing personnel in the state which would be difficult to make up through fresh recruitment, as the existing nursing training schools of the state will not be able to provide the required number of such personnel, with their current infrastructure".

So, in order to overcome the situation to some extent and considering all aspects of the matter, the age of retirement of all categories of nursing personnel, who are holding regular appointment and are in service as of September 1, shall be enhanced from 60 years to 62 years.

It has also been stated that necessary amendments in this connection in the West Bengal Service Rules Part 1 shall be made in due course.

This comes at the time when there are around 84,000 beds in the state-run health centres and there is a requirement of around 50,000 nurses.

According to a senior official, recruitment of nurses takes a long time as there are matters related to their training, involved in the process of filling up the vacant posts. So, the step to increase the age limit of retirement for nurses has been taken to ensure that health services do not get hampered due to the lack of nurses. Common people will be benefitted with the step taken by

the state government in this connection.

It may be mentioned that the state government has taken several measures in the past seven years to create infrastructure for providing better health services to the common people.