Deadwood under radar: Modi govt reviews service books of 67,000 staff

The central government has undertaken an exercise to review the service records of about 67,000 employees, including IAS and IPS officers, to identify non-performers.

The review exercise is a part of the government's efforts to further improve the service delivery and governance system.

A senior official in the Department of Personnel and Training said the exercise may result in punishment to those who do not conform to the code of conduct framed for them.

"The service records of nearly 67,000 central government employees are under review to check non-performance," he said.

Nearly 25,000 of these are from all Indian and Group A services -- including the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Revenue Service (IRS), among others, the official said.
 
When contacted by the PTI, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh said while on the one hand the government approach is of high-level efficiency and "zero- tolerance" towards corruption, on the other hand, it is also ensuring work-friendly environment for honest officers.

"The government time-to-time reviews performance of its workforce. It is to encourage the honest employees," he said.

Singh said the NDA government in its three years has introduced multiple relaxations in rules on transfer policy, Leave Travel Concession etc.

"But at the same time, a more objective mechanism has been developed to assess the performance of officers and also to determine their suitability for further promotion and empanelment," the minister said.

The Centre has given compulsory retirement to 129 non- performing employees, IAS and IPS officers among them, in last one year.

As per norms, a government employee's performance is reviewed twice during service -- after 15 years of qualifying the service and then after 25 years.

There are about 48.85 lakh central government employees, according to latest data.