Kerala: Chandy, Mani cooked pension hot potato

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:  The crucial decision to raise the pension age to 56 after doing away with the pension unification scheme was taken by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy  after consultations with Finance Minister K M Mani on Sunday evening. Most of  his Cabinet colleagues and senior bureaucrats were kept in the dark on the decision, though a section of  the vernacular media had reproduced excerpts of  the budget proposals on Monday  ahead of  its presentation in the Assembly. UDF coalition partners and even many top Congress leaders, barring KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala and a few others, were also unaware of  it.The prospect of  a huge commitment of  around Rs 2,000 crore looming large with the mass retirement of  nearly 20,000 government  employees, if the pension unification scheme was allowed to continue, was the immediate compulsion for  the Chief Minister to go in for  the decision. Sources said that the Finance Minister was closeted with Chandy at the  latter’s office on Sunday night for some time. No official was present in the CM’s chamber and only a top official and a typist in the Finance Minister’s office came to know about the plans.The proposal was forwarded for printing only after 2 am on Monday, sources disclosed.