The government is considering allowing police officers with unblemished service records to serve a further year beyond the current retirement age of 60, Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananda Wijepala told Parliament on Tuesday.
The minister said attention had been drawn to the possibility of granting a one-year extension to officers of good conduct who reach 60, and framed the measure as one response to a manpower shortage in the Police Department.
He was replying to a question on existing vacancies in the force. The Daily Mirror reported the question was raised by Samagi Jana Balawegaya MP Ranjith Madduma Bandara.
Filling the gaps
Wijepala set out several parallel measures to bring the force up to strength.
The government plans to recruit 7,800 personnel to the police service before the end of this year. Separately, 10,000 personnel from the Civil Security Department have been attached to the police, of whom 6,000 have already assumed duties.
Two hundred Sub Inspectors are currently undergoing training at Police Training Colleges, and interviews are in progress to recruit further officers, the minister said.
He acknowledged the shortage of human resources within the department, saying all necessary measures were being taken to address it and to reduce the heavy workload carried in particular by lower-ranking officers.
Part of a wider retirement-age question
The proposal lands while the government is pushing a far more contested extension through Parliament. The draft Constitutional Amendment Bill raising the retirement age of judges by two years has been approved by Cabinet and sent for gazetting, over objections from the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, the Judicial Service Association and the Mahanayake Theras.
Retirement ages across the public sector have been under review for some months. In July, Health Minister Nalinda Jayatissa said the government was examining requests from the judiciary, health workers and other professions to revise the age of retirement.
Unlike the judges’ measure, an extension for police officers would not require a constitutional amendment.
