Wednesday, August 22, 2012


WHY HBA IS BETTER THAN HOUSE LOAN GRANTED BY PSU BANKS?
IT IS A FACT THAT AFTER IMPLEMENTATION OF SIXTH PAY COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS HOUSE BUILDING ADVANCE (CALLED AS HBA) GRANTED BY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT TO ITS EMPLOYEES LOST ITS CHARM AS IT IS NO LONGER A HOUSE LOAN COMMENSURATE WITH THE PRESENT COST OF CONSTRUCTION.
The very term “pay in pay band” put in the place of “Basic Pay” after 6cpc implementation has made most of the damage as it has reduced the eligible amount of HBA. Alternatively, Pay in Pay band plus Grade pay should have been taken for calculation of eligible amount of HBA, as Pay in pay band + Grade pay form the Basic Pay of an employee after 6CPC for all purposes (For example DA, HRA, NPA etc are calculated only based on pay in pay band + grade pay).
So, it is a common grievance of all Central Government Employees that HBA should be based pay in band and Grade Pay.
The remaining damage for reduction of eligible amount of HBA are done by the conditions after 6CPC that Maximum ceiling of HBA is Rs.7.5 lakhs and that number of times of pay in pay band taken for calculating eligible HBA amount is 34 times only.
Why HBA is better than House Loan granted by PSU banks?
The very reason for which a Central Government Employee wanted to go for HBA rather than house loan granted by all PSU Banks and financial Institutions is the rate of interest charged for House Loan. While House Building Advance Scheme of Central Government charges interest ranging from 6.5% to 9.5% from the year 2003 depending on HBA amount sanctioned, PSU banks or financial institutions charge not less than 10.5 % presently. The other major benefit in the House Building Advance Scheme is the Quantum of monthly recovery. While PSU Banks recovers part of Principal and Interest at the same time on monthly basis which is called as EMI, HBA Scheme allows for recovery of principal amount only, for a period up to 180 months and interest thereafter for a period not exceeding 60 months. So, the quantum of monthly recovery amount for a particular loan amount under HBA scheme would be very lesser than EMI charged for same Loan amount taken from PSU banks.
We hope Government would come up with suitable amendments to rectify this common grievance of central government employees soon.

In fact, as per 6CPC recommendations the existing HBA scheme should be replaced with a New HBA Scheme as per which Government should tie up with leading PSU Banks for grant of housing loan at competitive rates to Central Government Employees and out of the interest charged by the banks for the housing loan, 2% of the interest should be subsidized by the Central Government (In the case of employees with disability the interest subsidy will be 4%).
However, this new HBA scheme is yet take off and in the mean time Ministry of Urban Development has issued Office Memorandum No: I-17011/11(4)/2008-H.III dated 27.11.2008 for revision in house building advance in which Maximum ceiling for cost of construction, HBA amount ceiling and number of times of pay in pay band to calculate eligible HBA have been revised to Rs.30 lakhs, Rs.7.5 lakhs and 34 times of pay in pay band respectively.
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Minister of State for Railways Mr.Bharatsinh Solanki has informed in the Rajya Sabha that already notifications for filling up 1,90,000 vacancies in Indian Railways have been issued by Ministry of Railways recently. The full text of this Rajya Sabha Q&A published in Rajya Sabha Website is as follows.
Rajya Sabha Q&A on filling up 1.90 lakhs vacancies in Indian Railways
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF  RAILWAYS
RAJYA SABHA
UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-894 by SHRI SABIR ALI
(a) the details of safety related vacancies in Railways as on 30 June, 2012 and since when these have been lying vacant; and
(b) the steps being taken to fill up the existing vacancies on priority basis?
ANSWERED ON-17.08.2012 by MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS (SHRI BHARATSINH SOLANKI)
(a) The number of vacancies in safety category posts as on 01.04.2012 is 149271 (provisional). Arising and filling of vacancies is a continuous process. Vacancies arise due to normal retirement, voluntary retirements, deaths, promotions, creation of posts, etc.
(b) The policy of the Railway Administration is to fill up available vacancies promptly as per laid down procedures. Notifications for filling up of about 1,90,000 posts, including safety category posts have already been issued.
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UTILIZATION OF POSTAL NETWORK
WAGE DISBURSAL SCHEME UNDER MGNREGS

   Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was notified in the remaining 274 districts of India from 1st April, 2008. The Act is now effective in the entire rural areas of the country covering 638 districts and has been renamed “The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)”. The objective of the Act is to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

            The scheme of disbursement of NREGS wages through post offices is operational in 19 postal Circles of the country (except Delhi, J&K and Tamilnadu Circles). Till 31st March, 2012, 5.59 crore MGNREGS accounts have been opened in post offices and wages amounting to Rs. 7,860 crore have been disbursed to MGNREGS beneficiaries during 2011-12 through 98,491 post offices across the country.

Main Features of Payment of Wages through Post Offices
*Payment to be made through Savings Bank accounts of post offices (zero balance workers wage account).
*Disbursement of wages within the prescribed time frame.
*Provision for advance deposit of one month’s wage in the Head Post office of the District Headquarter.
*Co-ordination meetings between Department and State Government authorities.
* Data Collection for Rural Consumer Price Index

            A mechanism has been worked out to calculate and disseminate the consumer price index with the help of data being collected for 1,181 villages through selected post offices throughout the country. The first set of consumer price indices was brought out in February 2011. India Post is thus playing a crucial role in providing Infrastructural support to enable the concerned government departments to design and implement policies to improve the well being of all the citizens of India.
Mail Network Optimization Project

            Department of Post had initiated Mail Network Optimization Project in March 2010 with a view to streamline mail operations and to improve the quality of mail related services offered to the people. It involved optimization of the erstwhile mail network, standardization of processes and development of an effective performance monitoring system. As part of this project, the operational network for Speed Post and other categories of mail has been restructured leading to optimized network and simplified operations.

            Speed Post is a premium product offered by the Department with time bound delivery and tracking facility.  As part of the project, a major emphasis has been laid on providing complete tracking information for Speed Post items on the website (www.indiapost.gov.in) for the benefit of the people using Speed Post. As a result, in the last two years, the number of items having complete tracking information on the website has gone up from 63 lakhs to 2.78 Crores per month.  Speed Post transit has improved by more than a day on an average across the network.

            A comprehensive online monitoring system for Speed Post operations has been developed and performance of operational units is monitored in terms of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on a day-to-day basis.

(PIB Features.)


SAVING BANK ORDER NO. 10

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SLP FILED IN HON. SUPREME COURT AGAINST KARNATAKA HIGH COURT DECISION ON FIXATION OF PAY ON PROMOTION TO PO & RMS ACCOUNTANTS DISMISSED.

Despite our request not to file any SLP on the High Court Karnataka decision on fixation of pay of PO & RMS accountants on promotion, the Department has filed SLP in the Supreme Court as per the opinion of the Ministry of Finance. Now the Supreme Court has dismissed the SLP. Now the Department has no option except implement the Karnataka CAT and High Court decision. The Department should come forward to implement the decision to all the similarly situated persons.

Kudos to Karnataka Comrades.

The Supreme Court has fined Rs. 50000/- to Department

A  remarkable and marvelous decision.

ITEM NO.9                                         COURT NO.5                                   SECTION IVA

S U P R E M E   C O U R T   O F    I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS

Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Civil)....../2012 CC 10080/2012

(From the judgement and order dated 18/11/2010 in WP No.7593/2003, of The HIGH COURT OF KARNATAKA AT BANGALORE)

CHIEF POST MASTER GEN.KARNATAKA CIR.& ORS                            Petitioner(s)

                                                              VERSUS

S.MOHANKUMAR                                                                                     Respondent(s)
(With appln(s) for c/delay in filing SLP)

Date: 05/07/2012    This Petition was called on for hearing today.

CORAM :

          HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE G.S. SINGHVI
          HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SUDHANSU JYOTI MUKHOPADHAYA

For Petitioner(s)       Mr.   R.P. Bhatt, Sr. Adv.
                                     Mr.   Ashok K. Srivastava, Adv.
                                     Ms.   B Sunita Rao, Adv.
                                    Mr.   B. Krishna Prasad,Adv.(Not present)

For Respondent(s)

            UP ON hearing counsel the Court made the following

O R D E R

              This petition filed for setting aside order dated 18.11.2010 passed by the Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court is accompanied by an application for condonation of 445 days delay.

            We have heard Shri. R. P. Bhatt, learned senior counsel representing the petitioners and carefully perused the averments contained  in the application filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act and are convinced that there is no valid ground to accept the explanation offered by the petitioners for delayed filing of the special leave petition.

         We are further of the view that the Bangalore Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal did not commit any error by quashing the action taken by the petitioners to re-fix the respondent's pay on the recommendations of the Vth Pay Commission and the High Court rightly declined to entertain the petitioners' challenge to the order of the Tribunal.

         Learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioners could not put forward any tangible argument to support re-fixation of the respondent's pay in the light of the recommendations of the Vth Pay Commission. Therefore, we do not find any valid ground to interfere with the impugned order.

         The special leave petition is accordingly dismissed on the ground of delay and also on merits.

         For filing a frivolous petition like the present one, the petitioners are saddled with costs of rupees fifty thousand which shall be deposited by them with the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee within a period of eight weeks from today. It will be open to the Central Government to recover the amount of costs from the officers responsible for taking wholly arbitrary and unjustified action for re-fixing the respondent's pay.

(Parveen Kr.Chawla)                                                                                    
Court Master                                                                                           
(Phoolan Wati Arora)            
Court Master

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CLARIFICATION ON PAYMENT OF INCENTIVE TO THE POSTMAN STAFF FOR DELIVERY OF SPEED POST ARTICLES CONTAINING ADHAR CARDS



Ministry of Communications & Information
SH KAPIL SIBAL DEDICATES AUTOMATED MAIL PROCESSING CENTRE, DELHI TO THE NATION AMPC CAPABLE OF SORTING 10 LAKH MAIL PER DAY
OCR System Recognizes the Pincode and Address for Taking Sorting Decision
Sh Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology, dedicated Automated Mail Processing Centre (AMPC) Delhi to the nation here this morning. Speaking on the occasion Shri Sibal said that Department of Posts has to gear up to the challenges of 21st century in a comprehensive manner. These efforts will go a long way in making DoP a more efficient, reliable and trustworthy organization.
AMPC Delhi is an important milestone for the Department of Posts in its attempt to provide a reliable, efficient, safe and cost effective postal service to the nation. AMPC Delhi has been set up with the aim of modernizing mail processing in India Post. A Letter Sorting machine (LSM) and one Mixed Mail Sorter (MMS) has been installed at AMPC Delhi at a cost of about Rs 42 crores. These sorting machines utilize state-of-the-art Optical Character Recognition (OCR)- Video Coding System (VCS) that can read the address written on the mail pieces and sort them to the correct destination. The LSM has a sorting speed of 35,000 letters per hour and MMS can process 20,000 ordinary as well as Registered and Speed Post letters, packets and small parcels per hour.
The LSM can sort letters/postcards/Inland letter Cards from 3 gms to 20 gms. As the letter enters into the LSM, a very high speed camera takes a picture of the address written on it and sends it to the OCR server for digitization and recognition. The OCR system recognizes the pincode as well as the address elements in the written address and takes a sorting decision on the basis of inputs received from the written address and the address database which has been created for the sorting systems. In case the OCR is not able to take a sorting decision then the image is sent to the Video coder who just sees the image on his/her computer screen and then types the pincode or the city/town name to sort the article to the correct destination. This entire process takes few seconds to get completed while the letter is still moving inside the LSM.
The MMS is an open conveyor based system which can sort any kind of letter, flat, packet or small parcels (from 5 gms to 5 kgs) and utilizes the same OCR-VCS system for sorting. Both the machines share the common OCR-VCS servers. MMS has the ability to the read the tracking barcode pasted/printed on the article and generate a manifest along with a unique bag label for the sorted mail so that track and trace for each individual article processed on the MMS is available on the internet.
As compared to the old style mail centres, setting up of AMPC has enabled the Department to consolidate the mail operations in a big city like Delhi. The entire first class and speed post mail of Delhi which was earlier handled at more than 12 smaller mail sorting centres is now consolidated at AMPC because of its ability to process almost 1 million mail pieces per day. Mail operations at AMPC not only enhance the speed of mail processing but also lead to a better efficiency and improved quality. State-of-the-art facilities have also been provided to the staff working at AMPC Delhi in order to improve their efficiency and motivation level. The LSM requires only 7 Clerks (SA) and 5 Multi-Skilled Staff (MTS) per shift (8 hours) to operate and produces an output of over 3 lakh mail pieces; the same work requires at least 30 clerks and 10 MTS. Similarly, the MMS requires almost 10 clerks (SA) and 18 MTS per shift to process almost 1 lakh speed post articles; the same work would require 25 clerks and 30 MTS in a manual environment.
The maximum advantage of using the machines is in the area of quality control as missort rate can be brought considerably down in good address quality mail. In case of MMS, multiple handling is also reduced as the tracking barcode of the speed post articles are automatically scanned by the machines while they are being sorted. Also, the entire mail gets sorted in one run as the number of sorting selections in LSM (304 selections) and MMS (152 selections) are enough to sort all the mail pieces in one sort program. This is in contrast to the manual sorting where the sorting cases have only 48 or 72 pigeon holes and some destinations have to be sorted in the second stage.
At AMPC there is a separate area for processing mail pieces which are not of machinable standards. The work flow of AMPC Delhi has been designed like an assembly line where-in the un-processed mail enters the facility from one end and gets dispatched from the other end after getting processed manually or on the automated systems.
The AMPC building has been constructed by DIAL in lieu of the old AMPC building which was acquired for laying the metro line. The construction started in October 2010 and was completed in October 2011. The building has been built on a plot of almost 10,000 sq mts size and the built up area is about 7000 sq mts on ground and first floor. The building has a 24 hour power back-up and a security system with state-of-the-art IP camera based CCTV system. Almost 500 staff, including about 60 ladies are working in AMPC in three shifts.
A similar facility has also been set up in Kolkata which shall also be inaugurated in a few weeks time. The sorting machines of AMPC Delhi are the new generation machines as compared to the Letter Sorting Machines installed at AMPC Mumbai in 1993 and at AMPC Chennai in 1996 which did not have the automatic address reading ability and were dependent on the coders to code all the mail pieces for sending them to their destinations.
Senior officers of the Department of Posts and the MLA of the area were also present on the occasion.
BK/AT
(Release ID: 86370) (PIB)

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