STUDY GROUP REPORT ON ENHANCEMENT OF BONUS CEILING FOR GRAMIN DAK SEVAKS...

It is favourably recommended by the Committee that the Ceiling of Bonus should be enhanced from Rs.2500 to Rs.3500- to Gramin Dak Sevaks...

"....... the Group recommends that bonus ceiling for GDSs should be increased prospectively."

"....... the Group recommends that bonus ceiling for GDS should be increased from Rs.2500- to Rs.3500-."

"..............The Group feels that the additional expenditure on this account will be recouped by the Department on account of the increased productivity with a better motivated work force. Further acceptance of this recommendation for increasing the bonus ceiling to Rs.3500- will not only settle the long pending demand of GDS but would also harmonize the service union's relations with the administration"

However, as already circulated by NFPE in its web site and journals, the last year's proposal for enhancement of Bonus for GDS to Rs.3500- was rejected by the Finance Ministry. They have returned the file directing the Postal Dept. to carry out fresh study and submit fresh proposal which will be applicable for the next financial year (i.e.,year 2013-14). Accordingly, Department of Posts has constituted a fresh Committee  (on 01-01-2013 vide MoF letter dated 12-12-2012)) for working out new proposal.

In reply given to the Memorandum submitted, the Secretary, Dept. of Posts in their letter dated 22-04-2013 has informed the Postal Joint Council of Action (NFPE & FNPO) including AIPEU-GDS(NFPE) as follows:

"Case file has since been submitted to Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure on 30-01-2013 along with Study Report conducted by the Study Group formed by the Department as per directives of Finance Ministry."

The JCA will meet after Federal Council and chalk out  future course of action.

This is the latest position regarding the GDS bonus ceiling enhancement......

The copy of the Study Report submitted by the Committee (STUDY GROUP REPORT ON ENHANCEMENT OF BONUS CEILING FOR GRAMIN DAK SEVAKS) is given below:

 

India Post needs to reorganize its services first; banking can happen later! - (a study on the subject)

India Post needs to overhaul its services and become more efficient than private couriers. When it reaches such a stage, private banks will then approach the government to seek permission to open branches attached to India Post offices

The deadline for submitting applications to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for new a commercial banking license is fast approaching and the names of prospective applicants are not yet known.

In the recent past, media reports and articles indicate that large business and corporate bodies have shown definite interest, some of which are already associated with financing companies, but actual applicants’ names may be announced by RBI after the closing date.  It may be recalled that the Parliamentary Standing Committee has not favoured issuance of licenses to new entities, particularly those associated with big business houses, as it feels that this may lead to corrupt practices.  

Amongst the contenders, India Post has shown keen interest but its enthusiasm has met with a negative response from the ministry of finance, which has pointed  out that India Post has no actual credit handling experience that is so relevant to operate a successful bank.

One may surmise the reason for the ministry of finance’s reaction in this fashion. India Post has suffered a loss of Rs6,346 crore in 2011-12 and it may have increased further for the year ending March 2013.  Details will be probably known by September this year.

Due credit must be given to India Post, the world's largest postal service, covering the whole country reasonably well at throw away prices!  However, the major problem actually refers to its inefficient, non-imaginative and inefficient administration which has hardly any motivation to perform well.

In effect, it is not profit-oriented.  The postal employee, who gets the benefit of being a government servant, has practically trouble free life long service with increments and periodic promotions.  S/he has no need to do customer service gimmicks and is not answerable for their poor service in terms of ‘lost’ or ‘delayed’ mail or service.

In fact, simply because of this inefficient outlook and lack of incentives to perform, competition from private courier services has grown into very large enterprises.

Though introduction of “speed post” and now sort of courier service to specific destinations at low prices have been found useful, customers still tend to depend upon their regular private couriers, almost at double the cost.  Speed and confirmed delivery are essence of contracts for business that private courier companies can and do guarantee, which India Post is unable to match in practice.

Most post offices are sitting on government premium property sites.  The postal rates are perhaps the lowest in the world and at this income they will not be able to reach profit making stage, unless these are revised upwards.

Philately, for example, is big business, and stamp collecting, including issue of First Day Covers (FDCs)—a popular growing hobby which starts at childhood (for most)—helps to broaden general knowledge and becomes a money spinner, in which one lands up on an antique or misprint of a stamp.  But visit any post office to buy a commemorative stamp, you will be directed to go and get them in the GPO! Why can't the post office, however small it may be, sell these stamps and FDCs?

Likewise, India Post also offers foreign exchange but try to buy them without a hassle!

Under the circumstances, India Post needs to overhaul its services, revise postal rates upwards to meet the growing cost; introduce adequate rewards and incentives to its large employee force and become as efficient as a private courier service, if not better them in some ways.

When it reaches such a stage, private banks will then approach the government to seek permission to open branches attached to India Post offices, as such a move may serve the ultimate purpose of making banking easy to the rural folks!

(AK Ramdas has worked with the Engineering Export Promotion Council of the ministry of commerce and was associated with various committees of the Council. His international career took him to places like Beirut, Kuwait and Dubai at a time when these were small trading outposts; and later to the US.)

//copy//

source:extracted from other website.

Dear Comrades,

One should be aware of the fact that the closure of a Branch Post Office is not with the mere decision of the Divisional authorities and there are strict guidelines to be followed the action on the subject.

--a public notification should be issued before closure or relocated,
--one month notice to be issued to the users of the PO for any objections/alternatives,
-- there should be a simultaneous relocation of every closed Post Office...
-- a PO proposed to be closed/relocated it should achieve required income norms with      in a period of 3 months for reconsideration.

The recent  3 days strike by Postal JCA in Kerala Circle on various issues including the closure of  BOs, where there was no observation of such guidelines by the Divisional Administration caused reconsideration and reopening of the two BOs.

The following are the orders issued by the o/o CPMG, Kerala….

//copy//

ON WAIVAL OF BONUS CEILINGS - QUESTION & ANSWER IN RAJYA SABHA

Amendment in Bonus Act for waiving ceilings is not considered at this time: 

Govt latest reply in Rajya Sabha

The calculation ceiling and eligibility limit has been revised from Rs. 2500/- to Rs. 3500/- per month and Rs. 3500/- to Rs. 10,000/- p.m. respectively vide the Payment of Bonus (Amendment) Act, 2007 notified on 13/12/2007 and made effective from 1st April, 2006. Keeping in view the large financial implications for both for the Public and Private Sectors further amendment to the Payment of Bonus Act for waiving both the ceilings is not considered feasible at this stage.:

 Govt reply in Rajya Sabha see details below:-

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF  LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT

RAJYA SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-4604

ANSWERED ON-08.05.2013

Amendment in Bonus Act

4604 .   SHRI RAMACHANDRA KHUNTIA

(a)whether it is a fact that at present skilled workers who are really contributing to production and productivity are not getting bonus; and

(b)whether Government is planning to amend the Bonus Act and waive the ceiling in salary and maximum bonus so as to make everybody in a production unit eligible to get the bonus?

ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE FOR LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT (SHRI KODIKUNNIL SURESH)

(a):       As per the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, any employee is entitled to get bonus provided he / she is considered as an eligible employee. As per the Act, an “employee” means any person (other than an apprentice) employed on a salary or wage not exceeding ten thousand rupees per mensem in any industry to do any skilled or unskilled manual, supervisory, managerial, administrative, technical or clerical work for hire or reward, whether the terms of employment be express or implied.” Government has no specific information of skilled workers being denied bonus.

(b):       The calculation ceiling and eligibility limit has been revised from Rs. 2500/- to Rs. 3500/- per month and Rs. 3500/- to Rs. 10,000/- p.m. respectively vide the Payment of Bonus (Amendment) Act, 2007 notified on 13/12/2007 and made effective from 1st April, 2006. Keeping in view the large financial implications for both for the Public and Private Sectors further amendment to the Payment of Bonus Act for waiving both the ceilings is not considered feasible at this stage.

*******

 source: extracted from other websites

A study with a positive look on Post Bank of India......

Why India Post should get a banking licence:

If RBI wants financial inclusion, India Post, with its large customer base and branch network, is the fittest candidate

India’s central bank is set to open doors to a set of private and state-run entities in the banking space in Asia’s third largest economy. The objective behind doing this, almost a decade after companies were last allowed to float banks, is the so-called financial inclusion or expansion of banking services in a nation of 1.2 billion people where 40% of the adult population still does not have access to banking. If the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) were to choose one state-run entity to do so, it should be 159-year old India Post. It had 154,822 branches across the country as on 31 March, the latest data available, the largest for any postal department in the world, and close to 90% of them—139,086—are in rural India. This is more than four times the rural branches of Indian banking system. As of June 2012, there are 165 banks in India, including 82 regional rural banks, and collectively they have a branch network of 92,117. Roughly 36% of it, or 33,367, are in rural pockets.

On top of this, India Post has 573,749 letter boxes strewn around the country. Imagine a situation where these letter boxes are doubling up as cheque collection boxes; there will be a dramatic change in the banking landscape in India. Using its network, India Post is capable of doing door-step banking even in remote villages, pushing moneylenders out of business. On an average, a post office serves an area of 21.23km and covers 7,817 people. In contrast, a bank branch serves around 13,000 people.

When it comes to number of accounts, India Post, however, lags behind the banking system. It has some 238 million savings accounts against the banking system’s 810 million accounts but it’s much more than what any bank in India has under its fold. The outstanding balance in all its accounts is little over Rs.6 trillion, more than half of the deposit base of the country’s largest lender, State Bank of India, and more than double of India’s largest private lender ICICI Bank Ltd’s deposit liability. The banking system’s deposit base is around Rs.68.4 trillion.

Apart from mobilizing savings through various schemes, India Post also sells mutual funds and pension products and offers remittance service from 205 countries across the world through 9,751 post offices. It has tied up with Western Union Financial Services Inc. and MoneyGram International Inc. for this. The government also uses post office accounts to route payments to beneficiaries as part of the rural jobs programme and the direct transfer of subsidies. The money raised by India Post goes into the so-called consolidated fund of India. In other words, they are part of the government’s public debt.

With this background, India Post should be the fittest candidate to establish a bank if indeed RBI wants financial inclusion, as no other public or private entity can compete with it in terms of reaching out to the rural masses. It is familiar with the art of deposit taking; has personalized relationships with rural folks who do not yet have access to Internet; and even though it does not directly invest in government bonds, it will not have any problem in fulfilling the statutory requirement of buying government bonds as it has been contributing to the consolidated fund of India. All it needs is to convert part of it into exposure to government bonds. Besides, it also has the infrastructure in place for distribution of financial products.

The argument that can go against it is its Rs.6,346 crore loss in fiscal 2012 as its business dropped, with emails denting people’s letter-writing habit and private courier firms taking away its market share. If it cannot hold on to its own business, how can it run a bank? The main reason behind the loss is not erosion in market share but the heavily subsidized services that it offers in rural India. The subsidy varies between 66.66% in a normal rural pocket and 85% in hilly, tribal and dessert tracts and remote villages. One would imagine that the bank will not be forced to offer subsidized services under the so-called universal service obligation.

If it is allowed to run its banking operations only under commercial considerations, it is bound to succeed with its existing customer base, branch network and reach and expand banking services to every nook and cranny of the country, which no other entity can do.

The biggest asset of India Post is its customer base and branch network, which any bank would have loved to own. Globally, commercial banks always eye the postal department’s network, which comes in handy for reaching out to retail customers. In 2010, Deutsche Bank AG took over the control of Deutsche Postbank AG by raising its stake. Through this, Deutsche Bank added Postbank’s 14 million customers to its 10 million German private clients to become the country’s biggest private sector retail bank. Headquartered in Bonn, Postbank was formed following the restructuring of German postal services in 1990.

As both the RBI and Indian government are keen on financial inclusion, India Post could be a vehicle to do so, provided the government allows it to have a professional management with expertise in banking and skill in technology. If its lack of banking experience comes in the way, India Post should tie up with a corporate entity and jointly seek the banking licence. State-run insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC) in 2001 had raised its stake in the Mangalore-based Corporation Bank from 12.26% to 27.02%. By doing so, LIC could start selling its insurance policies through the public sector bank and Corporation Bank started using LIC’s 3,000-odd branch network. India Post could do much more for spreading banking services.

Source: extracted from other websites

CIRCULAR No.3, Dated 08-05-2013

AIPEU-GDS(NFPE) RESOLUTION ON GDS ISSUES -- PROPOSED & ADOPTED IN 24th NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CCGEW

The following Resolution has been proposed and adopted unanimously in the 24th National Conference of Central Govt. Employees & Workers held from 4th to 6th May 2013 in Kolkata.

RESOLUTION ON DEPARTMENTALISATION OF GRAMEEN DAK SEWAKS AND OTHER ISSUES.

           This 24^th National Conference of the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers looks with shame that even after 65 years of independence, “ED System”, one of the legacies of the British Raj, is continued, carried forward, and entrenched as a system of cheap labour and exploitation by the Government of India in the Department of Posts. 

              The economic development during the six decades as a whole in the nation in general and in the villages in particular has brought several modern changes in the livelihood of the common man in the country. His needs and wants have been up dated. The Department of Posts is considered as the most useful vehicle to reach out to all those common men in the country for delivering the packages of different Ministries, departments of Government and for State Governments.

         The important products of Postal Life Insurance and Rural Postal Life Insurance are getting introduced to the general public through these erstwhile ED Employees, now renamed as “Grameen Dak Sewaks” and these sections of the Postal Workers are the mainstay in the business development of these products in the present competitive insurance sector. There are multifarious products and works that are being carried out by these Grameen Dak Sewaks and it is beyond doubt that the scope of business among the crores of rural population wholly dependent on these segment of Postal Workers. Such a vital section of Postal Employees is being treated as non-regular Government Employees by the Government is nothing but naked exploitation for the purpose of denying legitimate dues to them. 

             This All India Conference notes that Justice Talwar Committee constituted by the Government at the time of 5^th CPC had categorical in its recommendations that ED Employees are to be treated as Civil Servants for all purposes and that all perks, privileges and benefits are to be extended as like the other regular Government Employees but the recommendation was summarily rejected by the Government due to its traditional bias against the ED Employees. 

           This All India Conference of Confederation of CG Employees and Workers resolves to urge upon the Government of India to change its mind-set on the system of ED employees or Grameen Dak Sewaks from that of non-regular exploitative cheap labour system into the system of regular departmental employees and that a methodology should be construed to departmentalize all the existing GDS within a time frame.

            This 24^th National Conference also notes with concern that the stand taken by the Postal bureaucracy in the aftermath of formation of 6^th CPC to deny stoutly either to remit the consideration of pay revision of three lakhs of GDS to the  6^th CPC or to constitute a Pay Body headed by a Justice as like Justice Talwar had led to the formation of a retired officer headed committee called the Nataraja Murthy Committee that loaded its recommendations with a lot of anti-GDS character to snatch away several existing benefits like prorate wages on par with comparable departmental cadres as well as the parity in bonus ceiling quantum etc. 

          This All India Conference therefore resolves to urge upon the Government that as observed by the 4^th CPC it is the prerogative of the Pay Commissions to go into the issues of GDS also instead of forming any separate committees for these category of employees in the Department of Posts and hence the pay revision issue of three lakhs of GDS shall be remitted to the 7^th CPC on its formation.

          Pending such a revision of wages for the GDS through the 7^th CPC, this All India Conference of Confederation resolves to urge upon the Government to modify its retrograde stand of rejecting parity on bonus ceiling to GDS with all other sections of workers and employees under the Bonus Act and reducing the bonus ceiling from 3500/- to 2500/- in an arbitrary way based on the reactionary recommendation of the Nataraja Murthy Committee and come forward to remove this discrimination immediately.

            This National Conference of Confederation of CG Employees also resolves to urge upon the Government to direct the Authorities of Department of Posts to have a thorough discussion with the Federations and GDS Unions on all other issues of GDS including the time factor, the changing of Recruitment Rules of Postman and MTS that contains clauses against the interests of GDS as well as modifying the Conduct and Disciplinary Rules on par with the regular employees in every respect.

              This National Conference of Confederation of CG Employees & Workers also resolves to launch a powerful movement and consistent struggle along with the National Federation of Postal Employees for the settlement of all justified demands of three lakhs of GDS if the Department of Posts and the Government of India fail to redress the basic issues of these section of employees within a justified time frame.

//copy//

COMMISSION PAYABLE ON POTD ACCOUNTS FOR BPMs

//COPY//

WELCOME TO NEW CPMG

HEARTY WELCOME 

TO 

OUR NEW CHIEF POST MASTER GENERAL

******

SHRI B.V.SUDHAKUR, IPoS garu

*****

ALL INDIA POSTAL EMPLOYEES UNION-GDS(NFPE)
 A.P Circle 

welcomes our 

Chief Postmaster General 

& 

wish him all success

*****

DA order to GDS @ 8% from January 2013

MAY DAY GREETINGS