Take action against employees having foreign PR status: Punjab Govt

Faridkot, August 30

The state government on Tuesday directed all departments to collect the details of employees who have got permanent resident (PR) status or trying to get it in foreign countries. The government has asked the department heads to submit details of these officials to the state government within a week and take necessary action against them.

Furnish details in a week, depts told

• The government has asked department heads to identify employees staying abroad without authorised leave
• Some of them are either staying in foreign countries as permanent residents or are waiting for their PR without leave
• The government has asked the department heads to submit details of such officials within a week

All employees, who are staying abroad without authorised leave, also need to be identified for action against them.

In a letter to heads of all government departments, divisional commissioners, DCs and SDMs, the Personnel Department has written that many government employees were staying in foreign countries as permanent residents after getting ex-India leave. Some of them were either staying in foreign countries as permanent resident or waiting for this status, even without getting any leave from their departments.

Names of many such employees have surfaced in media reports, read the letter of the Personnel Department.

It further said many of these employees were working in foreign countries on different jobs and also paying taxes in lieu of their earning in those countries as per their rules. A government employee is not supposed to take any service or accept any employment during his ex-India leave without obtaining the previous sanction from his department.

The practice of settling abroad while in government service is common among the government schoolteachers. To stop this practice, the Education Department had some time ago decided not to allow ex-India leave for the new recruits.

Regular teachers, despite repeated warnings, rarely bothered to join duty making ex-India leave acting a shield against sacking, said sources.

Last week, the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department had dismissed Deputy Director Rakesh Kumar Singla for wilfully concealing facts that he had acquired the permanent residency (PR) of Canada in 2006. Singla is in Canada and he is under the scanner in Rs 2,000-crore alleged fraud in the department. Former Cabinet minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu has been arrested by the Vigilance Department in the scam.