The Indian Railways has decided to terminate about 13,000 employees who have been found absent for a long time. They constitute about 1% of the total work force of the Indian Railways.
According to an official of the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry has found that more than 13,000 employees are on unauthorised leave for a long time. “We have initiated disciplinary action, as per rules, to terminate the services of these absentee employees,” he said.
This is to be noted that the Indian Railways is the world’s eighth largest employer, employing 13 lakh people.
The Indian Railways, which carries about 2.20 crore passengers every day, is the fourth largest railway network in the world by size.
It runs over 13,000 trains every day.
He said the action has been taken following directions of Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for Railways and Coal, who has launched the exercise to improve performance of the organisation and boost the morale of sincere and diligent employees.
These absentee employees were detected as part of this drive, after which the Minister directed senior officers and supervisors to weed them out from the employees’ rolls, after following the due process. According to a source, there are several cases when employees come to office, sign the register and then leave for their personal work. “Many of them are found to be busy with union work. Now, they all will be shown the door. There cannot be any compromise on duty,” the official noted.
Performance suffers when such a large number of employees do not turn up for their duty,” the official said.
As per data, as many as 13,521 employees were found to be on leave without authorisation, as on 7 February.
In Central Railways, out of 1,375 absentee employees, action has been taken against 1,097. In the Northern Railways, action has been taken against 484 out of 1,301 absentee employees.
Meanwhile, the Indian Railways has notified about 62,000 job vacancies.
The recruitment drive of Group D vacancies includes posts like trackman, cabinman, welder, fitter, porter etc.