The Royal Civil Service Commission will now disallow civil servants to add leave, including earned leave, to Extra Ordinary Leave or EoL. The Commission announced this in light of the increasing number of civil servants adding earned leave to the EOL.
The commission, in a notification, said the decision comes as the issue has risen this year. In the past, civil servants would encash their leave. But now they add earned leave to the EoL as the leave encashment can be accumulated to ninety days. EoL is a facility given to civil servants where one can stay away from work for an extended period of up to two years.
The commission also said it will withhold promotions of those civil servants who have taken earned leave added to the EOL coinciding with their promotion date.
The commission said they are ineligible for promotion as they will be considered absent from duty during evaluation for promotion as per the Bhutan Civil Service Rules and Regulations 2018.
Meanwhile, the commission recorded the highest number of civil servants taking Extra Ordinary Leave this year compared to previous years.
More than five hundred civil servants reportedly took EoL this year. This comes as the country continues to witness a huge number of people leaving for greener pastures abroad.
Close to 2,000 civil servants availed themselves of the EoL in the past five years.
Kinzang Lhaden
