Ranchi, April 14: Former employees of Steel Authority of India have appealed to the government to increase their retirement benefits as rising costs, especially of medical treatment, were making it extremely difficult for them to maintain living standards. At a two-day meeting of the apex council of Federation of Retired SAIL Employees , an umbrella organisation of various ex-employee associations of the Maharatna company, its chairman V.N. Sharma appealed to the PSU to set up a corpus for retired employees as advised by the Centre.