The Indian Railways has been taking steps to close out on its long-standing problem of absentee employees.
The national transporter employs approximately 13 lakh employees, who are responsible for the basic upkeep of rail assets and carry out daily maintenance activities, and their absence is bound to cause a great inconvenience to passengers.
These employees, come to work, sign the register, and then leave the premises for unrelated work.
In November 2017, DK Gayen, the head of Human Resources for the Indian Railways, sent out a circular, asking inspectors and sub-inspectors of the personnel department, to carry out employee checks, and identify absentee employees.
Departments, acting on Gayen’s instructions, reviewed attendance lists and filtered out employees who were taking advantage of proxy marking.
Taking this a step further, Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways, recently instructed the top management of the national transporter to launch a drive to weed out long-term absentee employees in various railway establishments.
The drive revealed that more than 13,000 employees—around 10% of the workforce—were absent from the service for a long time, without the necessary authorisation.
Taking a strict stance against these absentee employees, the Railway authorities have instructed all officers and supervisors to identify and single out all absentee employees from the rolls, and after and after the due process is followed, they will be terminated from service.
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A statement by the Indian Railways, quoted by the Times of India, says “The establishment has initiated disciplinary action under the rules to terminate services of such absentees.”
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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