Several posts circulating on popular social media platforms have claimed that the government has made it mandatory for its permanent employees to take 20 days of earned leave every year. The dubious piece of information has not gone down well with many central government employees.
To avoid any sort of misinformation from affecting its workforce, the Centre has categorically denied the claim, dubbing it as completely baseless.
The claim
The false conjecture found its way on to Twitter and Facebook after a couple of media reports stated that the government has made changes to the leave policy.
"The Centre has decided that all its permanent employees must take at least 20 days of earned leave every year, instead of hoarding them up for encashment at the time of retirement," read one such report, which has now been taken down.
The report further added that the government-run-banks have already started sending their employees on a block of 10 days leave.
Influenced by the claim, hosts of central government employees took to the micro-blogging website to voice their disapproval of the new rule.
Fact-check
Before the fake news could have created a lot of confusion amongst the employees, the Centre issued a clarification to end all the speculations. Debunking the viral claim, it stated that no such announcement has been on the government's behalf and therefore, people should not fall for the purported reports.
The fact-checking arm of the government's Press Information Bureau (PIB), which counters misinformation circulating on the Internet on a regular basis, quashed the rumour via its official Twitter account.
"It is being claimed that the government has made it compulsory for its permanent employees to take at least 20 days of earned leave every year, instead of hoarding them up for encashment. The claim is #Fake. No such announcement has been made by the central govt," tweeted PIB Fact Check.
A similar tweet was also made from the Twitter handle of Prasar Bharati News Service (PBNS) so that the clarification could reach more people.
Therefore, it is very much safe to say that the claim that 20 days earned leave has been made mandatory for the government employees is false.
