Centre forces 129 non-performing officers to retire in public interest

The Centre has asked as many as 129 government officers to retire from services for being non-performers in the past few months in public interest, Union minister Jitendra Singh said on Tuesday. 

The action is part of review being done by the central government to check deadwood of its workforce. 

"A total of 30 Group A officers and 99 Group B officers (total 129) have been sent on retirement in past few months," he said during a press conference. 

The punishment of compulsory retirement was given after reviewing service records of over 24,000 Group A officers and 42,251 Group B officers. 

He said the authorities are looking into the service records of another 34,451 Group A officers and 42,521 from Group B to check the non-performers. 

Singh, minister of state in the Prime Minister's office, said the government has zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and it is committed to ensure citizen-centric governance. 

The Centre had in January terminated a senior IAS officer on grounds of non-performance. 

Earlier in 2014, graft-tainted IAS couple in Madhya Pradesh, Arvind and Tinoo Joshi, were dismissed from service, four years after an income-tax search on their house led to detection of disproportionate assets worth Rs 350 crore and recovery of Rs three crore cash.

A service review on a government employee is conducted twice -- first after 15 years and again after 25 years of completion of qualifying service.