More than 13,000 Railway employees face the axe in drive against long-term absentees

The Railways seems set to lost 1 percent of its total workforce.

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NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways has announced that it is set to launch a drive against long-term absentees on its payrolls. Disciplinary action is likely to soon be initiated against more than 13000 employees who are on unauthorised absence for an extended period. That is 1 percent of the entire Railway staff strength.

"A massive drive to identify long term absentees in various establishments of Railways has been initiated.  As a result of the said drive, Railways have detected more than 13 Thousand employees out of about 13 lakhs employees who are on unauthorised absence for a long time.  The establishment has initiated disciplinary action under the rules to terminate services of such absentees," read a statement from the Railways on the drive.

The statement said the move was ordered by Railways Minister Piyush Goyal "to improve performance of the organisation and to boost the morale of sincere & diligent employees."
Railways have instructed all the officers and supervisors to weed out these employees from the employees' rolls after following due process.

In line with the decision, instructions have been relayed to officers and supervisors to "weed out" these absentee employees after following due process.

Indian Railways is one of the largest employers in the world, and the drive is likely to see it lost about 1 percent of its total workforce.

The government's statement on the impending move however did not include the path forward, such as whether the on-paper vacancies caused by these removals would be filled soon. The statement also did not provide a roadmap of the distribution of absentee employees across the different levels of the Railways structure.