West Bengal govt sacks nominated board members, scraps service extensions beyond age 60

NEW DELHI: The West Bengal government on Monday ordered all departments to immediately remove nominated members, directors and chairpersons serving in non-statutory bodies, boards, organisations and public sector undertakings functioning under them.The moves comes days after Suvendu Adhikari assumed charge as West Bengal chief minister following the BJP's massive victory in the assembly polls.In a separate direction, the state government also asked departments to discontinue the re-employment and service extensions granted to officers and officials who continued beyond the usual retirement age of 60 years."The government has issued an order to take necessary action to immediately terminate the tenures of the nominated members, directors, or chairpersons of different boards, organisations, non-statutory bodies and public sector undertakings of the state government," a senior bureaucrat said.Also read: Suvendu Adhikari takes 6 big decisions as Bengal CM in first cabinet meetThe directive was sent to all additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries and departmental secretaries. It further stated that "the tenure of officers/officials who are on re-employment/ extension of service beyond the normal age of superannuation (60 years) in different departments under the state government may also be terminated immediately".According to the order, the move was taken "with the approval of the competent authority".Officials did not immediately clarify the reason behind the decision or reveal how many appointments and service extensions would be impacted.In the assembly elections results, the BJP won 207 seats in the 294-member West Bengal assembly, while the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC secured only 80 seats. The state also recorded a voter turnout of more than 90 per cent.