Govt takes punitive action against 73 officers

Government today said action like dismissal and compulsorily retirement has been taken against 73 officers for various reasons since January 2015 till February this year.
Without divulging specific details, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh informed the Lok Sabha that action was taken against 73 Group 'A' officers.
Asked by AIADMK member T Radhakrishnan whether action has been taken against officials in the alleged Aircel-Maxis issue, Singh said the government is very strict in taking action against corruption.
"We make sure that there should not be vindictiveness... and there is zero tolerance for corruption," the Minister said.

AIADMK MPs have been raising the Aircel-Maxis issue and demanding action against P Chidambaram's son Karti and others.
"As per information available, 73 Group 'A' officers have been dismissed/removed/compulsorily retired/deemed resigned or the penalty of pension cut imposed on them for various reasons from January 2015 to February 2016," Singh said during Question Hour.

While noting that review of performance of government servants was a continuous process, Singh said stringent action was also taken against those whose performance was "found to be below par".
Without being vindictive and by not getting into witch- hunting, the government is going ahead to further improve the performance of bureaucracy, Singh said.

"It is the endeavour of the government to improve overall performance of its officers through adoption of various measures such as promoting transparency and accountability in their functioning, regular monitoring of their performance, capacity building through training at various levels, welfare activities like adventure sports, yoga," the Minister noted.