Feedback of National Anomaly Committee meeting held on 29th May

As posted in previous post the meeting of National Anomaly Committee meeting was held on 29th May, 2015 and the first feedback of the meeting has been posted by Confederation on his blog.  The meeting was focused on pay anomalies due to MACP & promotion policy implemented Sixth Pay Commission

Discussion in the National Anomaly committee meeting:-

Item No.1. Review of MACP where Grade Pay of Rs. 2000/- is not available like Railways. 

Item No. 2. Grant of Addl. Pay to Loco and Traffic running Staff in Railways. 

Item No. 3. MACP for personnel appointed under LDCE and GBDCE scheme in Railways. 

Item No. 4. Grant of minimum entry pay meant for direct recruits to promotees.

Confederation of Central Govt. Employees & Workers

1st Floor, North Avenue PO Building, New Delhi - 110001

30-05-2015

Dear Comrades,

Sub:     Discussion in the National Anomaly committee meeting.

The meeting of the National Anomaly Committee was held today at Room No. 72 , North Block.  Mrs. Mamatha Kundra, JS(E) Department of Personnel and Training chaired the meeting.  The Staff side was represented by:

1.      Com. M. Raghavaiah, Leader Staff Side, 2 Com.Shiv Gopal Mishra, Secretary, 3. Com. Bhosale (AiRF) .4. Com. Guman Singh(NFIR), 5. Com. K.K.N. Kutty(Confederation), Com. M.S. Raja ( udit), Com. Srikumar (AIDEF)

The following issues alone were taken up for discussion at the meeting.  The next meeting of the NAC will be held on 9th June, 2015 afternnon, when the un-discussed items (12) of the agenda will be taken up.  The Staff side also pointed out the need to reach finality on all issues included in the agenda of NAC.

Item No.1. Review of MACP where Grade Pay of Rs. 2000/- is not available like Railways: The official side stated that the demand was to bring the hierarchy based MACP which may not be acceptable as it would disturb the uniformity across the Departments. They also said that in the background of 7th CPC coming into being, no change in the scheme at this stage would be desirable.

Item No. 2. Grant of Addl. Pay to Loco and Traffic running Staff in Railways.   After some discussions, it was agreed that the DOE will cause a reconsideration of the issue.

Item No. 3. MACP for personnel appointed under LDCE and GBDCE scheme in Railways. The official side agreed that under the ACP if the appointees under LCDE and GDCE have been treated as direct recruitment, the same might be treated in the same manner under MACP.

Item No. 4. Grant of minimum entry pay meant for direct recruits to promotees.   The official side stated that unless logically it is established that the proposed stepping up is needed, the direction of the FM in the matter cannot be got reversed. There was serious discussion in the matter thereafter.  The Staff side stated that the RPA rules promulgated after the 6th CPC recommendations were not in conformity with the Fundamental Rules on this issue.  They also stated that having once agreed to a position; the official side cannot withdraw there-from under the JCM Scheme.  They also stated that the course open to the official side was to present the case before the new Finance Minister.    On behalf of the Staff Side, the Secretary informed the official side that a rejection of an issue on which agreement is reached will not be taking lying down by the employees.  The Staff side also demanded that a meeting with the new Finance Minister be arranged so that they will be able to place this issue before his consideration.

29 cities upgraded for higher HRA & Transport Allowance

The Union Cabinet today approved upgradation of 29 cities and towns on the basis of 2011 population census for providing higher house and transportation allowance to central government employees.

The revised classification of cities would be effective from April 1, 2014 and cost the exchequer approximately Rs 128 crore for 2014-15.

"The Cabinet has approved reclassification / upgradation of certain cities/towns on the basis of Census 2011 for the purpose of granting House Rent Allowance (HRA) and Transport Allowance to central government employees," Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters here.

One the basis of the census, 2 cities - Pune and Ahmedabad - have been upgraded to 'X' class from 'Y' and 21 cities to 'Y' from 'Z' for the purpose of HRA, an official statement read.

These 21 cities are Nellore, Gurgaon, Bokaro Steel City, Gulbarga, Thrissur, Malappuram, Kannur, Kollam, Ujjain, Vasai-Virar City, Malegaon, Nanded-Waghala, Sangli, Rourkela, Ajmer, Erode, Noida, Firozabad, Jhansi, Siliguri and Durgapur.

That apart, six - Patna, Kochi, Indore, Coimbatore and Ghaziabad - have been advanced to 'Specified Higher Class' from 'Other Places' for the purpose of transport allowance, the statement said.

So far, the Census 2001 has been used for deciding the HRA and transport allowance of central government officials posted in these towns and cities.

The existing qualifying threshold of population for HRA classification is 50 lakh and above for X, 5-50 lakh for Y and below 5 lakh for Z class cities.The employees are entitled for HRA of 30%, 20% and 10% respectively for X, Y and Z class cities

Transportation allowance is payable at 'higher rates' in 13 specified cities classified earlier as 'A-1' and 'A' (those with a population of 20 lakh and above) and 'lower rates' for the rest.

The cities and towns are classified as X, Y and Z for the purpose of HRA and 13 specified cities classified as A-1, A and Other Places for transportation allowance.

No Objection Certificate (NOC) is not required for Govt Employees to Obtain Passport

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar

New Delhi: No Objection Certificate (NOC) is not now a mandatory requirement for government employees to get a passport.

To streamline and check the undue delay in getting passports to the government employees, the Ministry of External Affairs has relaxed provisions for issue of passport and asked the government employees to attach the copy of prior intimation letter submitted by the government employees to their controlling authority before applied for passport.

The Ministry of External Affairs has recently issued an Office Memorandum No.VI/401/01/05/2014 making the ‘Prior Intimation Letter’ valid proof like ‘No Objection Certificate (NOC)’ to obtain passport for government employees, public sector undertakings (PSU) employees and autonomous body employees.

Government employees, who applies for passport with ‘Prior Intimation Letter’, they do not need to police verification.

The above provision is applied for getting passport only not for VISA, the government employees are required to obtain ‘No Objection Certificate (NOC)’ from their departments concerned for getting VISA from foreign embassies for travelling abroad as per CCS (Conduct) Rules and the instructions have been issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) from time to time.

“Instead of hamstringing public sector banks with social schemes, it is time to transfer many of these financial tasks to India Post.” In the light of recently announced schemes aimed at weaker-sections of population, critically comment on the statement =Maximising the post office

Public sector bank employees are so overwhelmed by the sheer number of government-sponsored schemes they are saddled with, that they have begun to come up with parodies. One such spoof scheme is what they have named the Pradhan Mantri Sishu Palan Yojana, where customers with SB accounts can leave their children with the bank manager for babysitting services at a nominal cost.

This might be just a joke, but it does reflect the deep frustration among bankers at being mandated to carry out an enormous number of the government’s social objectives.

There has been a lot of commentary asking the government to reduce its involvement in Public Sector Banks (PSBs). The government has been asked to reduce holdings, step away from appointments of chairmen and board of directors, and to not interfere in bank schemes such as the farm loan waiver or mandatory priority sector lending, But nobody is talking about the government using PSBs to roll out its various populist schemes, which will affect their day-to-day operations in the short run, and its overall competitiveness in the long run.

A quick search will reveal that the number of government social schemes that use PSBs is uncomfortably high. The schemes cover a range of areas such as insurance (Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, etc), pension (Atal Pension Yojana), financial inclusion (Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana), and priority sector lending, which includes various schemes under agriculture, micro and small enterprises, education, housing, export credit and others.

Ambitious targets

Each scheme usually comes with countrywide targets set by the concerned ministry, which are then distilled and divided into smaller numbers for each bank branch. For example, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has an ambitious target of opening 10 crore accounts, to be divided among the banks. One PSB was assigned a target of 1 crore accounts and one of its branches in Bengaluru had a target of 1,000 accounts to be opened within a week. Such targets are rarely met, and even if they are, they rarely match the desired outcomes, due to complete misalignment of incentives. With a severe dilution of Know Your Customer norms, there is enough evidence about the actual success of the scheme — 75 per cent of the accounts are empty, multiple accounts have been opened by single persons, and there are huge costs that the banks bear (Rs. 200 per bank account).

But what is perhaps the biggest cost to banks is the opportunity cost they lose in implementing these schemes. Ambitious targets and time frames take up precious time that could have otherwise been used to carry out the original mandate of the banks — accept deposits and make loans. All normal bank activity comes to a standstill during such public drives, with employees being swamped by the targets. Even big business clients are asked to wait until the pressure eases. The PMJDY drive halted all normal banking activities for an entire week.

At a time when public sector banks are finding it hard to beat the competition posed by deep-pocketed foreign and private sector banks, they can ill afford to let their biggest customers take a back seat while they meet social goals.

Relevance of India Post

However, since social security measures are important, how about using another government-run behemoth, India Posts, for this task? As it struggles to find relevance in the digital age, perhaps the answer lies in reusing its enormous reach for delivering social schemes. In the U.S., this idea is being examined, and the U.S. Postal Service presented a report this month outlining exactly how postal banking could promote financial inclusion while turning in a neat profit for the service.

Two criteria have to be considered: reach and capability. India Post has a network of over 1.5 lakh branches across India, a reach that far exceeds all the PSBs combined. Of the 1.5 lakh branches, about 1.4 are in rural areas, compared to the combined 23,000 rural branches of the public sector banks.

India Post already runs the Post Office Savings Bank account, which handles cash worth Rs 6 lakh crore per year across 28 crore accounts. The service has also been quite successfully handling cash payments in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act — nearly 5.6 crore MGNREGA accounts, and wages amounting to nearly Rs. 10,000 crore have been disbursed to beneficiaries through 97,709 post offices across the country. Of the three main building blocks of financial inclusion — cash storage, disbursing payments, and giving credit — India Post has already shown that it is quite capable of handling the first two.

In the longer run, for India Post to play a bigger role in the fulfilment of the government’s social objectives, the following steps can be taken: First, one of the smaller and healthier PSBs could be merged with Indian Post so that the latter acquires a banking licence and a trained workforce. Second, incentives could be offered to the present workforce to sit for the banking exams. Third, banking exams could be made a requirement for a percentage of the new recruits; and, finally, the banking division of the post office could be brought under the RBI’s regulatory purview.

With this, India Post can expand from financial inclusion to handling insurance and pension accounts, priority sector lending in rural areas, and many other financial functions as well.

Some post offices around the world have undergone this transformation quite successfully. The Royal Mail of the U.K., for example, does all the things a bank does and additionally even provides telephone and broadband service.

This move could free public sector banks from being yoked to social sector objectives and allow them to become competitive and function freely in the highly cut-throat banking sector. Simultaneously, it could harness the potential of the post office network in India.

Announcement of Result of LGO Examination held on 23.11.2014

It was learnt that the result of LGO Examination for promotion to the cadre of PA/SA held on 23.11.2014 
has been sent to concerned Postal Circles by the Directorate.Preparation of division wise merit list is under process at circles.It is expected that division 
 wise result will be announced on any day in next week.

SMT. Kalpana Tiwari member planning directorate retired to Day 29.05.0-2015

SMT. Kalpana Tiwari member planning directorate retired from service.From NUPE -4 & FNPO. Shri T. N. Rahate madam honored bwishes for peacefull retire life