Aizawl, The Mizoram government has dismissed 29 employees of various departments for illegally employing “agents” to perform their duties, state Personnel and Administrative Reforms Minister K Sapdanga informed the Assembly on Tuesday.
The campaign follows a directive from Prime Minister Lalduhoma to end the decades-long practice of government employees paying substitutes to work in their place.
Sapdanga revealed that disciplinary action had been taken against 37 employees who were found to have violated service rules.
“In total, 37 employees were sanctioned for hiring agent or substitute workers on their behalf. Of these, 29 employees were terminated, while the remaining eight employees received minor penalties,” Sapdanga said while responding to members’ questions.
He said these disciplinary actions had been recorded in their annual confidential reports, which could negatively impact their future service prospects.
The extent of the “agency culture” became clear after a government order in December 2023.
Soon after assuming power, the Zoram People’s Movement administration pledged to end the illegal practice and directed employees to use proxies to self-report to their department heads by January 2024.
According to official data, more than 3,600 employees admitted to appointing replacement employees.
The School Education Department has the highest number of agent employees at 1,115, followed by the Health Department and the Energy and Electricity Department.
More than 2,000 employees cited health problems, while 703 employees cited domestic problems as reasons for hiring agents.
Other challenges cited by staff include a lack of residential neighborhoods in rural areas, inaccessibility to remote villages, and language barriers.
In June 2024, the government directed all such personnel to be stationed at their designated posting locations within 45 days of notification. In March last year, Lalduhoma told the state assembly that there was no report of officials appointing agents following the government order.
The Prime Minister also said that his government will grant voluntary retirement to employees who are no longer able to perform their duties due to certain reasons, under the newly introduced ‘Special Voluntary Retirement Scheme’.
As per the Mizoram Special Voluntary Retirement Scheme, 2024 notified in January 2025, regular employees governed by the ‘CCS Rules, 1972’, who have not rendered at least twenty years of service and those employees governed by the ‘New Defined Contribution Scheme of Mizoram, 2010’ may seek voluntary retirement under the scheme.
The number of government employees in Mizoram is estimated at between 45,000 and 50,000, according to officials.
This article was generated from an automated news feed without any modifications to the text.
