09/03/2016
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as a brand ambassador of sorts for khadi urging people to buy. This has already provided a fillip to sales. In fact, boosting production is now a major challenge for KVIC, which has separately sought to push khadi for uniform in government schools, defence forces, railways and Air India.
Notice for meeting with Secretary Generals of NFPE, FNPO and BPEF to discuss the issues relating to the 7th CPC
IMPORTANT NEWS
No.06-04/2015-SR
Government of India
Ministry of Communications & IT
Department of Posts
(S.R. Division)
Dak Bhavan, Sansad Marg
New Delhi, dated the 09th March, 2016
Subject: Notice for meeting with Secretary Generals of NFPE, FNPO and BPEF to discuss the issues relating to the 7th CPC.
It has been decided to convene a meeting with the Secretary Generals of the three Federations on 31.03.2016 at 11:00 AM in G.P. Roy Committee Room, Dak, Bhavan, New Delhi under the Chair of Secretary (Posts) to discuss the issues relating to 7th CPC.
Kindly make it convenient to attend. The meeting will be followed by lunch.
(Arun Malik)
Consultant (SR & Legal)
Official Side:
1. All Members of Postal Services Board
2. DDG (P), DDG (Estt.), DDG (SR & Legal)
Staff Side:
Secretary Generals, NFPE, FNPO & BPEF
Copy for information to:
1. Sr. PPS to Secretary (Posts)
Copy also to:
(i) ADG (GA) – for booking the G.P. Roy Committee Room and arrangements of Tea/Coffee/Snacks and Lunch, through CPLO. Exact number of persons and Menu etc. will be intimated later.
(ii) Caretaker – To ensure cleanliness of Committee Room and arrange flower vase etc.
(iii) A.E. (Elect) – for ensuring functioning of mikes etc.
Central employees may have to dress in Khadi on friday
The government is considering a plea from the Khadi & Village Industries Commission to appeal to employees to wear clothes made from the hand-spun fabric at least once a week as part of a plan to boost khadi production and benefit small weavers across the country.
"We are discussing this with the government and we will make an appeal. Employees can wear it to work on just one day," KVIC chairman VK Saxena told TOI, when contacted. Sources in the government said the entire exercise would be voluntary but the idea is to increase sales. "Even if everyone buys one khadi garment, imagine the rise in sales," said an officer. The central government currently has around 35 lakh employees, which does not include the railways and defence personnel.
Officers, however, are not opposed to the plan. "I wear handloom saris most of the time. It's not a big deal," said an officer. Another officer described it as a "good idea" and added that a lot of officers were already wearing Fabindia shirts and will probably need to add one from Khadi to their wardrobe. Separately, KVIC is entering into tie ups with companies such as Fabindia and Raymond to retail high-end khadi at some outlets.
Source : Times of India
Central Government Employees Strength – Task Force Formed to cut jobs if required – Budget speech 2016 indicated that Govt would rationalise its human resource to achieve maximum governance
Here is Business Today’s report on Central Government Employees Strength
The “governance and ease of doing business” section of the Budget speech talks about NDA government’s “unparalleled” emphasis to good governance with special focus on process reforms, IT-enabled government processes, etc. Stating that the whole idea is to remove the irritants for the public in their interface with government agencies, Jaitley explains that a task force has been constituted for rationalisation of human resources in various ministries. A comprehensive review and rationalisation of autonomous bodies is underway, he informs.
The message seems to be favouring automation and less job openings in the Central government services in future. While one can only appreciate the government’s intention to provide quicker, transparent and efficient services to its citizens, reduction of human resources need not always achieve that goal. In some cases, even replenishment of human resources could be the need of the hour.
HERE IS WHY
The Central government is already functioning with less number of employees than what is supposed to be its sanctioned strength.
Of the total sanctioned posts of 37.16 lakh in various Central government services, over six lakh remain vacant today. A huge majority, 5.3 lakh vacancies, are at the clerical and support staff level. There are over 50,000 vacancies among Group B level positions and close to 18,000 at the Group-A officers’ level. A year ago, 4,802 IAS officers were in position against a total sanctioned strength of 6,375.
The Seventh Central Pay Commission, in its report in November 2015, informs that the current sanctioned strength of the Central government is approximately the same as it used to be 10 years ago (37 lakh in 2006). In other words, rationalisation of human resources has been an on-going process because of which the total sanctioned strength of 38.9 lakh in 2014 has come down to 37.16 lakh. The effective employee strength, if one takes out the vacant posts, would be 31 lakh, a figure that is closer to 29.82 lakh of sanctioned strength forty five years ago (in 1971).
The total number of sanctioned posts was perhaps the highest in 1994 (41.76 lakh) as India’s economic liberalisaiton during that period saw disinvestments in sectors like telecom and resultant reduction in government jobs in the following years.
There are more reasons to believe that we may not be able to do away with too many posts immediately. In a submission before the Pay Commission, the Joint Consultative Machinery (JCM)-Staff Side had pointed out that contrary to the common perception, 88 per cent of Central government employees are either industrial or operational staff or not administrative staff. It also points to the increasing trend of outsourcing humanresources through contracts, another reason, perhaps, for less-optimal performance.
Finally, this is not the first time BJP government is attempting to downsize the number of Central government employees. The first NDA government under A.B. Vajpayee had brought in a plan to optimise (not rationalise) the recruitment to Central government jobs in 2001. The government wanted to bring in 10 per cent reduction in total sanctioned strength in a phased manner over a period of time. As per the “Optimisation Scheme”, all ministries and departments were mandated to prepare the Annual Direct Recruitment Plan for each year in order to prioritise the fresh intake of manpower. It continued for five years, and was extended for three more years, even after the change of regime at the Centre.
It was the Sixth Central Pay Commission which recommended the scrapping of the scheme as it felt that while “multiskilling of the government employees would increase their operational efficiency while simultaneously optimizing the staff strength”, a blanket ban on filling up of vacant posts across the board can impact effective functioning of the government.
While appreciating the government’s intend to right size its human resources given the changes in the work process due to technology and consequent reduction of layers, the Commission suggested more flexibility for effective service delivery. “Care has to be taken that administrative delivery structures do not become hollow or thin in critical areas”, it had stated.
By explicitly announcing the government’s decision to revise the pay structure of the Central government employees on the basis of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendation, Jaitley has committed to spend more on salaries. However, it should not result in the finance minister ignoring the warning given by the Sixth Pay Commission.
Rationalisation of human resources is good, if it is purely to improve governance and efficiency. Cutting jobs with the sole objective of reducing the salary burden may not be advisable.
Source: Business Today
Photographs of Women's Day Celebrations of Various Post offices
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| Arakonam HPO |
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| CPC Chennai |
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| CPC Chennai |
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| Cuddalore HPO |
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| Erode Division |
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| Tirunelveli Division |
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| HRO Madurai RMS |
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| Mylapore HPO |
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| Mylapore HPO |
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| Mylapore HPO |
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| St. Thomas Mount HPO |
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| St. Thomas Mount HPO |
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| St. Thomas Mount HPO |
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| Tiruppur HPO |
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| Avadi Camp HPO |
FM Arun Jaitley rolls back proposal on taxation of EPF withdrawal.
Facing all-round attack, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday withdrew his Budget proposal to tax employees' provident fund (EPF) at the time of withdrawal.
Jaitley had in his Budget for 2016-17 proposed to tax withdrawal of 60 per cent of accumulations in the employee provident fund after April 1, 2016. This was criticised by all employees unions as well as political parties. "In view of representations received, the government would like to do a comprehensive review of this proposal and therefore I withdraw the proposal," Jaitley said in a suo motu statement in Lok Sabha.
He, however, stated that 40 per cent exemption given to National Pension Scheme (NPS) subscriber at the time of withdrawal remains. In his budget proposal, Jaitley had proposed that 40 per cent of the EPF withdrawals would be tax exempt and the remaining 60 per cent would also get the same treatment provided the amount is invested in pension annuity schemes.
This proposal was criticised by the parties and the unions which said it amounted to forcing employees to invest in pension annuity schemes. "Employees should have the choice of where to invest. Theoretically such freedom is desirable, but it is important for the government to achieve policy objective by instrumentality of taxation. In the present form, the policy objective is not to get more revenue but to encourage people to join the pension scheme," Jaitley said explaining the rationale for the taxation proposal.
The proposal would not have impacted 3.26 crore EPFO subscribers drawing statutory wage of up to Rs 15,000 per month. Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has a total subscriber base of 3.7 crore.
Source: http://www.businesstoday.in/
Good news! Now non-entitled employees can claim LTC on air travel.
New Delhi: All non-entitled central government employees have been allowed to travel by air while availing Leave Travel Concession (LTC) with a condition that reimbursement in such cases shall be restricted to the fare of their entitled class of train or actual expense.
The Ministry of Personnel had recently eased norms for processing claims of LTC -- which allows grant of leave and ticket reimbursement to eligible central government employees to travel to their home towns and other places.
"Government employees not entitled to travel by air may travel by any airline. However, reimbursement in such cases shall be restricted to the fare of their entitled class of train, transport or actual expense, whichever is less," an order issued by the Ministry said.
The move comes after the government received a number of queries in this regard. In many cases, employees did not have railway station or good road network to their home towns and they had requested for permission to travel by air to save time, which was being denied, officials said.
Now, they will be allowed to travel by air and by any airline, they said. At present, those entitled to travel by air have to mandatorily travel by Air India.
A government servant may also apply for advance for himself or his family members 65 days before the proposed date of the outward journey and he or she would be required to produce the tickets within ten days of the withdrawal of advance, irrespective of the date of commencement of the journey, as per the new norms.
There are about 50 lakh central government employees.
All central government employees have been asked to share photos and interesting details of their holidays.
The DoPT has decided to put a limit of one month for verification of LTC claim after the LTC bill is submitted by government employee for settlement and final payment.
"Efforts should be made to reduce the duration of processing of LTC applications or claims at the earliest. The maximum time limit should be strictly adhered to and non- compliance of time limit should be adequately explained," its directive said.
Source: http://zeenews.india.com/