NEW DELHI: Cracking down on non-performers, the Ministry of Defence Thursday sacked 13 senior officers of the Indian Ordnance Factories Service. They have been shown the door for their “unsatisfactory performance”. Ordnance Services officers, an organised Group ‘A’ Central Service, manage the 39 ordnance factories under the administrative control of the Department of Defence Production in the Defence Ministry.
The government has been severe on non-performer bureaucrats, as nearly 400 top babus, including IAS and IPS officers, have been sacked in the last three years. “The government, after having assessed the overall performance of officers of the Indian Ordnance Factories Service, following the prescribed procedure, has decided to retire its 13 Group ‘A’ officers from government service in public interest due to their overall unsatisfactory performance,” the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
The performance of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) has been under scanner after a recent report tabled by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) presented a dismal picture about the quality and availability of ammunition supplied by the OFB. There are more than 1,700 Group ‘A’ officers in the OFBs and several attempts were made in the recent past to improve the performance of the factories by making their officers accountable to ensure delivery of quality products to the armed forces within the prescribed time.
According to the Ministry of Defence, one of the steps taken in this direction was to “initiate rigorous screening of overall performance of its officers based on their entire service records”. This is according to the instructions contained in the Fundamental Rule 56(j) and Rule 48(1)(b) of the Central Civil Service (Pension) Rules, 1972, for prematurely retiring officers whose overall performance is not found to be up to the mark. Officials claimed that an officer who has put in 30 years of service or is above 50 in a Group A service, if recruited early, would be at the rank of director or joint secretary and is entitled for monetary benefits despite being sacked. “They will get pensionary benefits they are eligible to as per the number of years put in,” a source said.