Central Govt Relaxes Norms For Employees Who Could Not Join Work Due to COVID-19 Lockdown

Issuing a notification, the Personnel Ministry said that the norms were relaxed for employees who were either on leave or on an official tour and could not join office due to non-availability of public transport during the coronavirus lockdown.

New Delhi: Making stranded employees’ life easy, the Central government on Wednesday relaxed certain norms for them at this time of coronavirus pandemic.

Issuing a notification, the Personnel Ministry said that the norms were relaxed for employees who were either on leave or on an official tour and could not join office due to non-availability of public transport during the coronavirus lockdown.

“The government servants who were on official tour and were unable to return to their headquarters due to non-availability of public transport should be deemed to have joined duty on the date of expiry of official tour, if intimation in any form, indicating difficulty in joining duty due to non-availability of public transport/flights, has been given by the government servant to the office”, it said.

The move from the Centre comes in the wake of the government receiving several references and queries from the employees who proceeded on leave with necessary permission, but could not report for duty due to travel restrictions.

In the order, the Personnel Ministry issued a directive saying that employees should avoid an unnecessary reference to DoPT (Department of Personnel and Training under the ministry) on the subject.

“In case of leave on medical grounds, this is subject to production of a medical/fitness certificate,” it said.

The ministry further added that the curtailment of a sanctioned leave may not be agreed to in case the leave of government servants expired during the lockdown period.

(With inputs from PTI)