HERE COMES THE MOST AWAITED "POSTBANK"

The postal department plans to enter the banking business with the Reserve Bank of India deciding to grant new bank licences to entities with credible track-record.

Consultant appointed

Sources said the Department of Posts, which has a strong foot print in rural areas, has appointed Ernst and Young (E&Y) as the consultant for the proposed ‘Post Bank’

“Ernst and Young is expected to submit a detailed project report by April, after which all the necessary measures will be taken up to apply for banking licence,” a source at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology told PTI.

The sources added that the Department of Post (DoP) might need Cabinet approval for setting up Post Bank of India.

Of the 1.55 lakh post offices in the country, around 24,000 district offices may be ready to offer banking services in the next two years.

The DoP is in process of setting up 1,000 ATMs.

“Post Bank shall not only take care of the banking needs of the rural poor but shall also converge with micro-insurance and micro-remittance services of the DoP,” the source said.

As per data shared with Parliament, there were over 26 crore operational small savings accounts in post offices as on March 31, 2012, having deposits worth Rs.1.9 lakh crore.

Courtesy – The Hindu, 23rd Feb, 2013

THANKS PURI DIVISION FOR SUCESSFULL STRIKE

We (NFPE & FNPO) once again extend our warm greetings and congratulations to all Postal , RMS & MMS employees who made the two days nationwide strike a thundering success. About 1,50,000 Postal , RMS&MMS offices including Branch Post offices remained closed for two days. About more than five lakhs employees including GDS struck work. Though the strike will be over tonight, the struggle against the anti-worker policies will continue. Let us keep this unity and fighting spirit intact.

Unity for Struggle, and struggle for unity.

Thank you, Thank you all.
M. Krishnan                                                 D. Theagarajan
Secretary General                                    Secretary General
NFPE                                                             FNPO

GLIMPSE OF KHURDA HO DURING STRIKE 

 

Govt-trade unions talks fail, strike as scheduled on Feb.20, 21

The talks held by the government with the representatives of 11 Central trade unions here on Monday night to urge the unions to withdraw the February 20, 21 nation-wide strike call has failed and the unions have announced that the protest will be held as scheduled.

INTUC president G. Sanjeeva Reddy, who participated in the talks, told The Hindu that the government representatives — Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge — had wanted the unions to postpone the strike and said their demands could be discussed later in detail.

“However we told the government that it should at least accept some of the ten demands put forth by us. As the government was not willing to further discuss any of the demands, the talks failed and we have no option except to go ahead with the strike as announced,” he said.

The trade unions will meet in Delhi today to discuss how to successfully organise the strike, Mr. Reddy said.

The trade unions have given notice for a two-day strike on February 20 and 21 protesting the price rise, inflation, poor employment generation, lack of adequate social security for unorganised sector workers, among other things.

STRIKE NEWS !

Ahead of strike, TUs to take out rally on Monday.

As part of preparations for a nation-wide strike called for February 20 and 21 by 11 major trade unions, a big rally will be taken out on Monday in Mumbai. Over one lakh workers are expected to participate..
All-round impact
The strike will have an impact in transport, port and dock, electricity, petroleum, coal, steel, defence production, telecommunications, postal, hospitality industry, major engineering, electrical and automobile sectors, banks, including private ones, and retail shops.

SUPPORT FROM STATE GOVT.s

 For the first time, chief ministers have agreed to support a nationwide strike called by trade unions. While as administrative heads they cannot be seen participating openly in a strike, Odisha and Karnataka CMs Naveen Patnaik and Jagdish Shettar, respectively, have assured AITUC leader and veteran CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta of "moral support" to the general strike being called jointly by 11 registered TUs in the country cutting across party lines on February 20 and 21.

Dasgupta told TOI that he had met Patnaik and Karnataka deputy CM R Ashok to garner support for the strike.

It is also for the first time that Shiv Sena and the Left parties have agreed to come together to protest against the Centre's "anti-people economic policies" and price rise. Sena chief Uddhav Thackaray has assured Dasgupta in Mumbai that his party will take part in the strike against work that is likely to hit the oil, coal, power, banking, transport, defence etc sectors. Besides the 11 registered TUs, 1,450 small TUs have joined the strike call.

But, ironically while many from outside the Left or TU fold have joined hands to protest against the UPA government at the Centre, the Left camp itself stands divided on the issue of a two-day strike call. The Bengal unit of CPM, opposed to the idea of stalling work for 48 hours, has asked CITU, the party's trade union wing, to join the strike for only a day. This has emerged as a compromise formula within the CPM, to ensure that it does not seem that the Left camp is not together on the issue. In West Bengal, the strike is unlikely to be successful for the second day since CITU will not participate in the strike on February 21 since Bengal celebrates Bhasha Andolan on that day. "We do not approve of this (CPM's stand)," said Dasgupta, when asked about CPM breaking ranks.

The second day of the strike has been planned to coincide with the opening day of the budget session of Parliament, when President Pranab Mukherjee will be delivering his address to the House.

 

STRIKE DISCUSSION FAILED

Cabinet Minister for Labour &Minster of States for Labour held discussion with Central leaders on 13-02-2013. On the charter of demands. Discussion failed as Central Government is not ready to concede the demands. All the Trade Union Leaders unanimously decided to go ahead with the two days strike.

7th CPC News : 7th Pay Commission Projected Pay Scale

People may think that the babus again started to make voice over pay revision and next pay commission or 7th Pay commission. There is a saying that “The crying baby gets the milk”. The need makes the man to act.

One should try to understand the fact that being a government servant one can witness a considerable pay hike at least twice or thrice of his/her entire service period. Because, other than promotion, only the pay commission recommendation will give them considerable pay hike. But it takes place once in ten years. Now a days a government employee can render service 20 or 30 years only due to non availability of employment opportunity in government service below the age of 25. So there is no need to be get annoyed by hearing the voice for seventh pay commission from central government employees. Because constituting next pay commission is for nothing but to review the salary of the govt. servants with the current economical condition of the country.

How the pay of a govt. employee had been fixed at the beginning of the Independence India.

Till now there are six pay commission had been constituted to review and recommend pay structure of central government employees.

All the six pay commissions have taken many aspects into consideration to prescribe the pay structure for government servants.

In the first pay commission the concept of ‘living wage’ was adopted.

In second pay commission it had been reiterated that the pay structure and working condition to be crafted in a way so as to ensure the effective functioning of government mechanism.

The third pay commission adopted the concept of ‘need based wage’

The Fourth CPC had recommended the government to constitute permanent machinery to undertake periodical review of pay and allowances of Central Government employees, but which got never implemented.

In Fifth pay commission all federations demanded that the pay scale should be at par with the public sector. But the pay commission didn’t accept this and told that the demand for parity with the Public Sector was however difficult to concede as it felt that the Job content and condition of service in the government and pulic sector not necessarily the same. There were essential differences between the two sectors.

The Sixth Central Pay Commission, claimed that it had not only tried to evolve a proper pay package for the Government employees but also to make recommendations rationalizing the governmental structure with a view to improve the delivery mechanisms for providing better services to the common man

What about seventh pay commission?

Generally every pay commission, before recommending a pay structure, it used to analyze all the aspects including the economic situation of the country, financial resources of the government, comparison with the public sector, private sector and state government pay structure etc. So it is very much clear that Pay Determination is very complicated and sensitive task. Without any doubt every one accepts that this is very challenging task too. In order to determine the new pay structure the pay commission has to go through voluminous data consisting current economic condition, strength of the work force and working condition etc. In the meantime, if one tries to suggest or comment about 7thy pay commission pay scale or about what the seventh pay commission pay scale would be, it will not get much importance.

But when we come across all the recommendations of six pay commissions, we observed an interesting factor which is common to all the pay commission recommendations, particularly in the matter of percentage of increase in the pay. Average 3 times increase in the pay was recommended by each pay commission and it was accepted by government and implemented. We have posted three articles about six pay commissions before this post.

Click the link given below to see those articles and average increase was worked out in the table.

First CPC to Third CPC Pay Scales

Fourth CPC pay scale and Fifth Pay commission

Short Description about Sixth Pay Commission

Obviously it is simple thing, we can say it a mathematical coincidence that we have in common in all previous pay commission, but we cannot neglect this. Because it was there, every time it is noticed that the revised pay was approximately three times higher than its pre revised pay. Apart from all the factors which has been used to determine the pay revision, we can use this simple formula ‘common multiplying factor’ to know the 7th pay commission pay scale . If next pay commission prefer to continue the same running pay band and grade pay system for seventh pay commission also, the pay structure may be like the following projected figures given below, using common multiplying factor ‘3’. The Following is only the projected figure using common multiplying factor ‘3’

SIXTH CPC PAY STRUCTURE				PROJECTED  PAY STRUCTURE  FOR NEXT  (VII)  PAY COMMISSION
Name of Pay Band/ Scale	Corresponding Pay Bands	Corresponding Grade Pay	Entry Grade +band pay	Projected entry level pay using uniform multiplying factor` 3’
				Band Pay	Grade Pay	Entry Pay
PB-1	5200-20200	1800	7000	15600-60600	5400	21000
PB-1	5200-20200	1900	7730	15600-60600	5700	23190
PB-1	5200-20200	2000	8460	15600-60600	6000	25380
PB-1	5200-20200	2400	9910	15600-60600	7200	29730
PB-1	5200-20200	2800	11360	15600-60600	8400	34080
PB-2	9300-34800	4200	13500	29900-104400	12600	40500
PB-2	9300-34800	4600	17140	29900-104400	13800	51420
PB-2	9300-34800	4800	18150	29900-104400	14400	54450
PB-3	15600-39100	5400	21000	29900-104400	16200	63000
PB-3	15600-39100	6600	25530	46800-117300	19800	76590
PB-3	15600-39100	7600	29500	46800-117300	22800	88500
PB-4	37400-67000	8700	46100	112200-20100	26100	138300
PB-4	37400-67000	8900	49100	112200-20100	26700	147300
PB-4	37400-67000	10000	53000	112200-20100	30000	159000
HAG	67000- (ann increment @ 3%) -79000	Nil				201000
HAG+ Scale	75500- (ann increment @ 3%) -80000	Nil				226500
Apex Scale	80000 (Fixed)	Nil				240000
Cab. Sec.	90000 (Fixed)	Nil				270000

MACP for Railway Employees – Two important Clarification on Benchmark MACP Scheme and regarding employees joined another organization

Financial upgradation under MACPS in the case of staff who joined another unit/organization on request:

• Regular service rendered in previous organization/office shall be counted along with the regular service in the new organization
• Wherever an official, in accordance with terms and conditions of transfer on own volition to a Lower post, is reverted to the lower Post/Grade from te promoted Post/Grade before being relieved for the new organization/office, such past promotion in the previous organization/office will be ignored for the purpose of MACP Scheme in the new organization

Benchmark for MACP Scheme

• In the hierarchy of grade pay within the PB-I Benchmark will be fitness
• After PB-1, the benchmark of ‘Good’ would be applicable till the grade pay of 6600/- in PB-3. The benchmark will be ‘Very Good’ for financial upgradation to the grade pay of Rs.7600 and above.
• Where the financial upgradation under MACPS also happens to be in the promotional grade and benchmark for promotion is lower than the benchmark for granting the benefit under MACPS as mentioned in para-17 ibid, the benchmark for promotion shall apply to MACP also
• Wherever promotions are given on non-selection basis (i.e. on seniority-cum-fitness basis), the prescribed benchmark as mentioned in para-17 of Annexure-I to Board’s letter dated 10-06-2009 shall not apply

The full text of this Railway Board is as follows:

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

RAILWAY BOARD

S. No.PC-VI/313

No. PC-V/2009/ACP/2

RBE No.08/2013

New Delhi, dated 31/01/2013

The General Managers

All Indian Railways & PUs

(As per mailing list)

Subject :- Modified ACP Scheme (MACPS) for Railway employees – clarification-regarding.

Reference is invited to the Board’s letter of even number dated 10-06-2009 regarding the Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme (MACPS) to Railway employees. Pursuant to the discussions in the meeting of National Advisory Committee held on 17-07-12 and subsequent meeting on 27-07-2012 held with the Staff Side and in continuation to clarifications issued vide Board’s letter of even number dated 28-12-2010, it is further clarified as under:

2(i). Financial upgradation under MACPS in the case of staff who joined another unit/organization on request.

Railway Board’s letter of even number dated 28-12-2010 provides that in case of transfer ‘including unilateral transfer on request’, regular service rendered in previous organization/office shall be counted along with the regular service in the new organization/office for the purpose of getting financial upgradations under the MACP Scheme. However, financial upgradation under the MACP Scheme shall be allowed in the immediate next higher grade pay in the hierarchy of revised Pay Bands as given in Railway Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008. It is now further clarified that wherever an official, in accordance with terms and conditions of transfer on own volition to a Lower post, is reverted to the lower Post/Grade from te promoted Post/Grade before being relieved for the new organization/office, such past promotion in the previous organization/office will be ignored for the purpose of MACP Scheme in the new organization/office. In respect of those cases where benefit of pay protection have been allowed at the time of unilateral transfer to other organization/unit and thus the employee had carried the financial benefit of promotion, the promotion earned in previous organization has to be reckoned for the purpose of MACP Scheme.

2. (ii) Benchmark for MACP Scheme:

Para 17 of Annexure-1 of Railway Board’s letter dt. 10-06-09 provide that the financial upgradation would be on Non-functional basis subject to fitness, in the hierarchy of grade pay within the PB-I. Thereafter for upgradation under the MACPS, the benchmark of ‘Good’ would be applicable till the grade pay of 6600/- in PB-3. The benchmark will be ‘Very Good’ for financial upgradation to the grade pay of Rs.7600 and above. Railway Board’s letter of even number dated 28-12-2010 provides that where the financial upgradation under MACPS also happens to be in the promotional grade and benchmark for promotion is lower than the benchmark for granting the benefit under MACPS as mentioned in para-17 ibid, the benchmark for promotion shall apply to MACP also. It is now further clarified that wherever promotions are given on non-selection basis (i.e. on seniority-cum-fitness basis), the prescribed benchmark as mentioned in para-17 of Annexure-I to Board’s letter dated 10-06-2009 shall not apply for the purpose of grant of financial upgradation under MACP Scheme.

3. The instructions issued on MACP Scheme vide Board’s letter of even number dated 10-06-2009 stands modified to the above extent.

4. This issues with the concurrence of the Finance Directorate of the Ministry of Railways.

5. Hindi version is enclosed.

[DoP&T's OM No.35034/3/2008-Estt.(D) (Vol.II), dt. 4th October, 2012]

sd/-

(N.P.Singh)

Dy. Director, Pay Commission-V

Railway Board

Cash transfer from February 9

The direct cash transfer scheme (DCT) is going to be launched through post offices in Chittoor district. The seeding of the accounts of beneficiaries with Aadhaar numbers and biometrics is being completed and it would be launched by February 9, Chief Postmaster General AP Circle Karuna Pillai said.

Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Information Technology and Communication Killi Kripa Rani, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and other Ministers and dignitaries are expected to attend the launch, she said speaking on the sidelines of the AP Postal Regional Cultural Selection Trials 2013 here on Saturday.

Further, the Department of Posts is launching its core banking service in Srikakulam district and Parvathipuram division this month, she said. With the linking of the postal savings bank accounts the users would be able to transact their accounts in any post office in the region for now and later it would be expanded to cover all the post offices. These accounts also would be seeded with the Aadhaar and biometric details to enable their unique identification and enable them to be used for the Centre’s DCT scheme.

Accepting the fact that there were delays in the delivery of Aadhaar cards to individuals she said that postmen were heavily burdened. In some cases the postmen have 8,000 articles to deliver. This would cause a delay in their delivery. In Hyderabad, the postmen have been delivering the Aadhaar cards on Sundays and holidays also, she said and added that the Department was also recruiting staff apart from provide postmen with two-wheelers to increase the efficiency in the last mile delivery, she added.

The Department will sett up two automatic mail sorting machines at its complex near the Hyderabad airport. One system would cater to the regular letters and the other to sort the parcels. The letter sorting machine would be able to handle 35,000 letters per hour and the other would be able to sort 25,000 parcels per hour.

8% DA HIKE FOR CENTRAL GOVT STAFF

In a major development, the Union Cabinet on Friday approved 8% hike in the Dearness Allowance (DA) for central government employees and pensioners. This decision is likely to bring some relief to nearly 50 lakh central government employees trying to cope up with spiraling inflation and price hike.

Source:zee news