NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES, GROUP ‘C’ (FNPO P3) AMBATTUR BRANCH, CHENNAI 600 053
FNPO ZINDABAD

Saturday 11 February 2017

11/02/2017

22nd All India Conference of National Association of Postal Employees, Group-C






7th Pay Commission: Why government not to implement higher allowances?

New Delhi: Despite all that has been said about the higher allowances under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, an important issue for central government employees has now been strangely absent from the government agenda.

First, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had claimed it must implement after four months of the basic pay hike but it failed to come true.

More than 14 to 15 months have passed since the 7th pay commission report was submitted and seven months have elapsed since the union cabinet approved the 7th Pay Commission recommendations for salary hike of central government employees, but the they are still awaiting the higher allowances.

The government has given higher basic pay in August 2016 with arrears, effective from January 1, 2016 to its employees on the recommendations of the 7th pay commission but the hike in allowances other than dearness allowance referred to the 'Committee on Allowances' headed by the Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa for examination as the pay commission had recommended of abolishing 51 allowances and subsuming 37 others out of 196 allowances.

Accordingly, existing allowances are now paid to the central government employees according to the 6th Pay Commission recommendations until issuing of higher allowances notification.

Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa said in October 2016, "We are ready to submit our report, when the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley calls up."

But the government gave extension to the committee up to February 22, 2017 on the pretext of demonetisation and the government said that the cash crunch was the reason behind the delay in announcing higher allowances.

The announcement of assembly elections in five states has given an excuse for the government as it cannot announce pay hikes till the model code of conduct is in place up to March 8.

The government is using delaying tactics to save the government money to pay higher allowances without arrears from August 16.

The delay in implementation of the higher allowances has caused tremendous irritation and frustration among employees.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi led BJP may have to face a backlash in the assembly elections in the five states, two of which is ruled by the party either directly or in alliance. Thus, not properly implementing of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations would amount to strike to blow to the BJP in polls.
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GDS ONLINE RECRUITMENT



Central Civil Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1988 – Fulfillment of procedural requirements- Clarification


Central Civil Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1988 – Fulfillment of procedural requirements- Clarification reg.

No.31011/3/2015-Estt.(A.IV)
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
Department of Personnel and Training
Establishment A-IV Desk

North Block, New Delhi-110001
Dated February 9, 2017

OFFICE MEMORANDUM

Subject:- Central Civil Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1988 – Fulfillment of procedural requirements- Clarification reg.


The undersigned is directed to refer to para 8 and 9 of the Guidelines enclosed in this Department’s O.M. of even number dated 18.2.2016 on the above noted subject and to say that the issues have been revisited. It has been decided that the cases where a Government servant travels on LTC upto the nearest airport/railway station/ bus terminal by authorized mode of transport and undertakes rest of the journey to the declared place of visit by private transport/ own arrangement (such as personal vehicle or private taxi etc.), may be dealt with as follows:-

(a) In all such cases the Government servant may be required to submit a declaration that he and the members of the family in respect of whom the claim is submitted have indeed travelled upto the declared place of visit.

(b) If a public transport is available in a particular area, the Government servant will be reimbursed the fare admissible for journey by otherwise entitled mode of public transport from the nearest airport/railway station/bus terminal to the declared place of visit by shortest direct route.

(c) In case, there is no public transport available in a particular stretch of journey, the Government servant may be reimbursed as per his entitlement for journey on transfer for a maximum limit of 100 Kms covered by the private/personal transport based on a self-certification from the Government servant. Beyond this, the expenditure shall be borne by the Government servant.

(d) Furnishing of false information will attract disciplinary action under the CCS(CCA) Rules, 1965.

Note: For the purpose of these rules, the expression ‘Public Transport” means all vehicles, including trains and airplanes operated by the Tourism Development Corporations in the Public Sector, State Transport Corporations and Transport services run by other Government or local bodies.

Sd/-

(Surya Narayan Jha)
Under Secretary to the Government of India

Source: http://dopt.gov.in/

10.02.2017

Grant of one time relaxation to the Central Government Employees who have availed LTC-80 and traveled by air by purchasing Ticket from other than authorized agents.


09.02.2017

opening of the first batch of new Post Office Passport

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Department of Posts (DOP) announced on 24 January, 2017 their decision to utilize the Head Post Offices (HPO) in the various States as Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) for delivering passport related services to the citizens of our country. The objective of this partnership is to extend passport services on a larger scale and to ensure wider area coverage.

The pilot projects for this joint venture between MEA and DOP was inaugurated on 25 January, 2017 at the HPO at Mysuru in Karnataka by Shri Ananth Kumar, Minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers and Parliamentary Affairs; and at the Post Office at Dahod in Gujarat by Gen (Retd.) Dr. V.K.Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, and Shri Jaswantsinh Sumanbhai Bhabhor, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, Government of India. The POPSK at these two places have been running successfully since their inauguration. One hundred appointments are being released every day for each of these POPSK.

With the successful operationalization of these two pilot projects, the Government has now decided to scale up this programme by opening 56 POPSKs at the following places in the first batch of expansion:
LocationsStatePassport Office
1. Kurnool
2. Kadappa 
Andhra PradeshVishakhapatnam
3. SilcharAssamGuwahati
4. Purnia,
5. Gopalganj
6. Muzaffarpur
7. Bhagalpur
8. Siwan
BiharPatna
9. SurgujaChhattisgarhRaipur
10.DamanDamanMumbai
11. DiuDiuAhmedabad
12. SilvasaDadra & Nagar HaveliMumbai
13. East Delhi,
14. Noth East Delhi,
15. North West Delhi
16. South Delhi
17. West Delhi
DelhiDelhi
18. Bhuj
19. Palanpur
GujaratAhmedabad
20. Hisar
21. Karnal
HaryanaChandigarh
22. FaridabadDelhi
23. Palampur
24. Hamirpur
Himachal PradeshShimla
25. Leh
26. Udhampur
J&KSrinagar
27. JamshedpurJharkhandRanchi
28. Dhanbad
29. Deoghar
30. Belgaum
31. Devangere
32. Hassan
33. Gulbarga
KarnatakaBengaluru
34. PathanamthittaKeralaTrivandrum
35. KasargodKozhikode
36. KavarattiLakshadweepCochin
37. Gwalior
38. Satna
39. Jabalpur
40. Vidisha
Madhya PradeshBhopal
41. Rourkela
42. Sambalpur
43. Koraput
OdishaBhubaneshwar
44. Kota
45. Jaisalmer
46. Jhunjhunu
47. Bikaner
48. Jhalawar
RajasthanJaipur
49. SalemTamil NaduCoimbatore
50. VelloreChennai
51. Mehbubnagar
52. Warangal
TelanganaHyderabad
53. Asansol
54. Nadia
55. North Dinajpur
56. North Kolkata
West BengalKolkata
MEA and DOP are working closely for the early commencement of passport related services at the above mentioned POPSK. Once fully functional, applicants who apply for their passports on-line through the Passport Portal will be able to schedule an appointment at the above POPSK to complete the formalities necessary prior to the issue of the passport.

Following the liberalization of passport policies announced on 23 December, 2016, we have seen nearly 30% surge in demand for passports. For example, a record number of 53,400 applications were processed on 7.2.2017 out of which 49,259 were fresh applications. This is the highest since the commencement of the Passport Seva Project. Our Passport Offices are conducting special Passport Melas during the weekends to cater to the increasing demand for passports.

The pilot projects of the Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSK) have been running successfully at Mysuru and Dahod. We have been releasing 100 appointments for Mysuru and Dahod POPSK per day with cent per cent utilization. Appointments for Mysuru are now available in ten days while at Dahod it is available the next day. 

These are clear indicators that the liberalization of the passport policies and opening of the POPSK have been successful efforts of the Government that have been welcomed by our citizens. We expect that opening of these additional POPSK would further help our citizens in getting passports easily.