New Delhi: The central government is learnt to fire 20 percent of its employees as part of its “annual performance appraisal”.

According to sources, the centre is likely to show the door to about one million employees, while speculation is rife that the number could go up.

About 5.2 million central government employees currently working in India, excluding the defence personnel.

When contacted the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), a source told The Sen Times on condition of anonymity, the government undertakes a “rigorous performance appraisal process” on a regular basis to align its employees with service delivery objectives, strategic priorities of the government, and public requirements.

“The performance appraisal may also lead to the separation of employees from the government jobs and its numbers vary from year to year,” it added.

The government officially, however, did not comment on the number of employees that may be asked to leave.

The source said government comprehensive performance evaluation process includes mentoring, re-training and upskilling of employees.

The government has tightened performance appraisals for employees, weeding out non-performers, as the government sees its businesses slowing for public services, technology shifts towards digital, and growing government businesses in digital, he added.

The government looks at scrutinising employees for performance in the same post for longer periods, identify gaps to reskill, and mark out those who are unable to upskill with newer technologies, he pointed.

The source also said, the upskills central government employees in newer technologies such as cloud, digital and analytics, and will redeploy them in the government new projects, while those may not leave.

Most of the impact of job cuts will fall on Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Department which is working under the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) in Finance Ministry.

With the GST council’s decision to divide tax payers with annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore, between the Centre and the states in the ratio of 90:10, which shows the scope of work of the CGST employees will be severely limited.

With a shrinking assessee base, fear of losing jobs of the CGST employees also get increased.

However, the sources said the Finance minister Arun Jaitley told the employees associations that since the work of Income Tax department will increase due to increased number of assesses coming under tax net, some of the workload can be transferred to CBEC.

FM is learnt to have said that he will discuss the issue with Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the Revenue Secretary.