Guwahati: The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is under fire as another AGM level official from the North East posted in the Regional Office in Guwahati, Assam was allegedly retired before schedule.
There had already been allegations of ‘biased retirements’ and ‘failure to act against corrupt’ officials against the FCI.
The FCI recently ‘retired’ ten senior officials from the Patiala division in the Punjab region and five officials from the Jammu division prior to their scheduled retirement, marking another wave of dismissals.
But the latest person to be retired before the schedule came on August 14, 2023.
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The official said that after working so hard for nearly 17 years, he was “rewarded” with a retirement despite being efficient at work.
In a similar incident back in May, at least twelve high-ranking officials were also prematurely “retired” from their positions.
The official who originally belongs to Manipur said that he was posted in a department where he could be termed as inefficient.
Speaking about the “retirement order”, he said that the order reads retirement but if looked closely upon, it was more like a termination without a reason.
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The order copy served to them claimed “interest of the Corporation and public interest in general”. However, what was the interest was not defined.
The employees or officials who were served with the order of retirement were told that they would receive the equivalent of the amount of pay and allowance for three months calculated at the same rate at which they were supposed to be drawing them immediately before retirement.
However, sources said that the decision was taken after the official who originally belonged to Imphal had been absent from work for around 37.
He was not even available on online networks.
Countering the charge, the official claimed that since he is from Manipur, he was stuck there due to the ongoing clashes. His family was attacked and they had no way to come out from the area.
He also claimed that the routes were all close and there was no network or ways to communicate the situation he along with his family had gone through.
More employees are feared to be “retired” by the FCI in the coming days.
A source said that the entire process hints that the FCI might soon be privatised.
The source further added that with the downsizing continuing, FCI’s total strength in terms of employees has gone down to 32000 approximately in 2023 whereas, in 2004 it was more than 75000.
The source added that apart from downsizing, the FCI is also planning to “asset monetize” around 110 FCI godowns in the country by handing them to private parties.