L-G retires 108 officials in drive to weed out ‘tainted’
NEWDELHI: Delhi lieutenant governor (L-G) Anil Baijal on Thursday directed 108 officials in various agencies and departments in the city to immediately take compulsory retirement for poor performance in adherence to a policy that is in line with one adopted by the central government earlier this year.
Of the 108 employees shortlisted for compulsory retirement, 61 are from the three municipal corporations in the city, 14 each from the services department and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), both under the L-G’S domain, and 19 in total from various Delhi government departments which include transport, water, irrigation and flood control, and the urban shelter board, said a statement issued by the L-G’S office on Thursday.
“The action taken was reviewed from time to time by the Chief Secretary and also at the level of the Lieutenant Governor,” the statement said.
On July 4, the L-G had directed told top government officials in the city to “weed out dead wood and dark sheep” by ensuring compulsory retirement of “tainted” officials, much in line with a policy recently implemented in several central government departments.
The directions were issued by the L-G barely two weeks after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had forced 27 senior Central Board of Indirect Taxes, Customs and Income Tax department officials to retire over allegations of corruption.
The agencies included the Delhi government, DDA, Delhi Police, municipal corporations
DDA
North DMC
South DMC
East DMC
Services Department Transport Department DSIIDC
I&FC Department Power/dtl
DJB
DUSIB among others. Baijal had sought from these agencies a “multipronged strategy” using a myriad of measures — legal, administrative and technological — to remove corruption from government functioning.
The L-G also reminded top officials of provisions under the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972 for carrying out the said order. Government employees in union territories (UT), which includes Delhi, come under the ambit of these rules. Within three weeks, all these agencies had formed review committees in adherence to the L-G’S directions.
North Delhi Municipal Corporation commissioner Varsha Joshi on Thursday explained the decision to remove 39 engineers of the civic body under 59J to the members of the civic body’s standing committee.
“We have received clear-cut instructions from the government of India on this and as the chief disciplinary authority, I had to take this action, though it was unpleasant. We considered three main factors: integrity, effectiveness and absenteeism, while deciding who needed to be removed. There could be many with preliminary enquiries (PES) or even running chargesheets against them, but we considered their entire service record with special emphasis on corruption cases.”
“For instance, there is a particular gentleman in north corporation who has had one major penalty and 19 smaller penalties against him during his entire service. We cannot afford to retain such persons in north corporation if we want a corruption-free image for the municipalities,” she said.