Appointments comittee of cabinet is likely to announce its decision on this shortly, sources said. The age limit for being considered for appointments as directors or managing directors in state-owned enterprises was fixed at 56 when the retirement age was 58 earlier.

This was based on the premise that a candidate should have at least two years of service left before his retirement to be considered for a board- level appointment. When government raised retirement age of its employees to 60, public sector employees were also extended the same facility thereafter through a government notification, but the agelimit for being considered for board level appointments remained at 56.

The Public Enterprises Selection Board (pesb), which selects candidates for appointment in the board of PSUs, had reportedly told government that age limit should continue to be retained at 56 though retirement age had been raised to 60.

The PESB felt that a candidate selected as a director must enjoy a tenure of a minimum of four years to be able to do justice to the job, sources said. PESB also felt that shorter tenures for directors were counter-productive as it would have to begin the search all over again for their successors.

Awaiting government's response, PESB in the meanwhile had suspended all interviews of candidates to fill up vacancies at the board level in several PSU's, informed sources said.

The PESB suggestion to government was found to contain certain anomalies which the PSU employees' associations were quick to detect. The associations, it is learnt, told industry ministry that PESB suggestion if implementedwould create unnecessary hierarchical problems in the PSUs. Those candidates, who did not have four years to go before retirement, would not be considered for board-level appointments and their juniors meanwhile could get selected for the same post, thus superceding their seniors.

This, the associations felt, would unnecessarily upset hierarchy in PSUs and be unfair to candidates who had lesser number of years left to serve in the organisation.

The associations told industry ministry that age limit for board level appointments in PSUs should also be correspondingly raised to 58 years so that senior employees were not discriminated against.

Following this, the ministry has moved a note to cabinet for raising the age limit for such appointments. The matter is now pending with the appointments committee of the cabinet.

Meanwhile, a spokesman of standing committee on public enterprises when contacted said he favoured retention of age limit at 56 years. The scope essentially represents the top levelmanagement of the PSUs.