The Piyush Goyal led Railway Ministry has identified more than 13,000 Railway Employees who have taken long and unauthorised leaves of absence. The ministry is now in process of initiating a disciplinary action which would result in the termination of their services.

This action as per reports is part a drive which seeks to improve the organisation’s performance and boost the morale of diligent and sincere employees. As per a statement by the railways, the massive drive to identify long-term absentees in various railway departments was initiated which resulted in them earmarking about 13,000 of the total 13 lakh employees.

As per a press release by PIB, this exercise was launched under the direction of Minister Piyush Goyal and apart from the aforementioned steps, the officers and supervisors have been instructed to “weed out” the defaulting employees from the employee rolls after following due process.

Ever since coming to power the Modi government has been making a name for itself when it comes to being strict with non-performing bureaucrats.

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In July it was reported that the Ministry of Personnel had given premature retirement or cut the remuneration of 381 civil servants for either being non-performers or for allegedly being involved in illegal activities.

In August the Modi government had compulsorily retired two IAS officers for being inefficient in their duty. In January two other IPS officers were also sacked by the Modi government for non-performance.

The Defence ministry too has taken such an action, with it compulsorily retiring more than 12 officials of the Indian Ordnance Factory Service (IOFS) for poor performance.

A similar cut in the workforce was witnessed in December 2015, when it was revealed that the Modi government had so far dismissed 13 officers and imposed pension cut on 45 others for unsatisfactory performance and delivery in public service. The government had then taken the decision to remove the “Deadwood” in order to make the bureaucracy performance oriented and more accountable.