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Secretary, Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare has sent a letter to all Departments to hold Pension Adalat, on the same day of 23-8-2019 to settle maximum number of grievances of pensioners. We welcome this good initiative.
See the letter from Secretary, DoP&PW: pension-adalat-in-all-depts.pdf
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Media reports say that the Group of Ministers (GoM) led by Home Minister Shri Amit Shah met on 16-7-2019 to discuss various proposals for revival of BSNL and MTNL. But the GoM has not taken a final call.
STAFF FORCE IS THE ONLY PROBLEM? Stress of the entire exercise is on reduction of staff. The outside Think Tanks advising the government forget the fact that 10 years ago, with more staff BSNL could earn profit. GoM discussed a VRS package for staff. The package will cost BSNL Rs. 6365 Crore and MTNL Rs. 2120 Crore. Earlier the Finance ministry officials had opposed the scheme. The High Level Committee of Secretaries also could not take a decision in the matter.
4G SPECTRUM: The media reports say that administrative charges for 4G spectrum business will be Rs 14000 CR. for the BSNL and RS 6000 Cr. for the MTNL.
NO FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM THE GOVT: Sh. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Communications had requested budgetary allocation of Rs 1000 Crore immediately for BSNL. But Finance Minister did not mention anything about it in her budget speech.
In addition to Sh. Amtishah, Ravishankar Prasad and Nirmala Sitaraman are also members of the GoM.
UP West Circle Conference was held at Meerut on 14-7-2019. Comrades P Gangdhara Rao (GS), Com. Anupam Kaul (AGS), Com. J S Dahiya (AGS) and Jadhir Singh (OS) attended it on behalf of CHQ and explained the status of various issues and our efforts thereon.
Com. Anupam Kaul speaks.
A view of the Delegates.
Comrades R C Sharma, Kailash Gautam and J K Sharma are unanimously elected as Circle President, Circle Secretary, and Circle Treasurer respectively.
State of Manipur adopted the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972, as amended from time to time. As per Rule 49 of the Central Civil Services Rules, 1972, a case of a government employee retired in accordance with the provisions of the rules after completing qualifying service of not less than 30 years, the amount of pension shall be calculated at 50% of the average emoluments subject to a maximum of Rs.4500/per month (at that time). Considering the increase in the cost of living, the Government of Manipur decided to increase the quantum of pension as well as the pay of the employees. Government of Manipur issued an office memorandum on 21.4.1999 revising the quantum of pension. However, provided that those Manipur Government employees who retired on or after 1.1.1996 only shall be entitled to the revised pension at a higher percentage and those who retired before 1.1.1996 shall be entitled at a lower percentage. The pensioners who retired before the said cutoff date approached the Court. A single bench of Manipur High Court at Imphal delivered a judgement on 24-3-2005 striking the above OM pointing out the decision of Supreme Court in Nakara Case. But, Govt. of Manipur appealed against it. After eleven years, on 1-3-2016, the Division Bench of same High Court delivered a different judgement which went against the pensioners. The Pensioners Association approached Supreme Court of India. Now, the Division Bench of Supreme Court, consisting of Justice M R Shah and justice B P Boppanna, pronounced yet another good judgement on 11-7-2019 upholding the historic judgement in Nakara Case. Once again it is declared that pensioners cannot be divided on the basis of their date of retirement. Hereunder we reproduce the relevant Para 9 of the said SC judgement dated 11-7-2019. …. Editor]
9. In view of the above and for the reasons stated above, we are of the opinion that the controversy/issue in the present appeal is squarely covered by the decision of this Court in the case of D.S. Nakara (supra). The decision of this Court in the case of D.S. Nakara (supra) shall be applicable with full force to the facts of the case on hand. The Division Bench of the High Court has clearly erred in not following the decision of this Court in the case of D.S. Nakara (supra) and has clearly erred in reversing the judgment and order of the learned Single Judge. The impugned judgment and order passed by the Division Bench is not sustainable and the same deserves to be quashed and set aside and is accordingly quashed and set aside. The judgment and order passed by the learned Single Judge is hereby restored and it is held that all the pensioners, irrespective of their date of retirement, viz. pre1996 retirees shall be entitled to revision in pension at par with those pensioners who retired post1996. The arrears be paid to the respective pensioners within a period of three months from today.
Click here to see the Judgement sc-judgement-manipur.pdf
Kerala circle Association has remitted a sum of Rupees One Lakh to the Fani Relief fund of our Orissa Circle Unit. Kerala Circle association fixed quota for all SSA Units and they, in turn, remitted the money immediately to Circle feeling the urgency.
Congrats, Kerala comrades for the timely action.... PSR
Shri Sathish Kumar, Jt CCA, Kerala has sent to me a soft copy of the Handbook for Retirees, prepared by Dept of Telecom on the new SAMPANN. It is uploaded below.
I am thankful to Sathishkumar, one of the officers worked behind the scheme..... PSR
Click here to see the book: handbook-for-retirees.pdf
Vizianagaram District conference was held on 7-7-2019. Com. K S Kotesweara Rao (Circle President), Com. Varaprasad (Circle Secretary), Sri Prabha Rao (GM Retd), Com. Somasundara Rao (DS, Visakhapatnam), Com. Kameswara Rao (DS Srikakulam) and leaders of NFTE and SNEA addressed.
Comrades B Venkiteswarlu, Ch Ramakrishna and T S Krishnamurthy have been elected as DP, DS and DT respectively
Uttranchal (Uttrakhand) is the new circle Unit of our Association. The leaders of the Unit have moved effectively. A meeting was held on 5-7-2019 which was addressed by Com. J S Dahiya, Asst. General Secretary. 3 photos
CIRCLE LEADERS, Coms. G S Sobti (ACS), Dadarji (CS), V D Bhatia (VP), Ayodhya Prasad (VP), R J Dubey (Pres.) and Rawat (Org. Secy) with Shri H K Verma, CGMT, UTL.
Kottayam district conference was held on 9-7-2019. Com. P S Ramankutty, All India President inaugurated it and Com. T P George, CS Kerala also addressed. Comrades M C Chacko, J V Daniel and A A Thomas have been unanimously elected as Disrict President, Secretary and Treasurer respectively.
(Retired from S -12 WITH Rs. 6500-10500 SCALE)
Please refer the posting about same issue given in this website few days ago (reproduced hereunder)
" The Sixth CPC submitted its report within stipulated time. Justice (Retd) B N Srikrishna and his team in sixth CPC did not bother to study the nature and responsibilities of various cadres in central services and recommend appropriate pay scales. Instead, they adopted a simple method: Add the Basic Pay and DA on 31-12-2005 and then grant a new element of Grade Pay. For Pensioners, the sixth CPC recommend a uniform benefit of 40% of Basic Pension. A serving employee with Basic Pay of Rs 5000 got increase of Rs 4200 as Grade Pay (84% of basic pay) plus consequent increase in HRA etc. For a Pensioner with basic pension of Rs. 5000 the increase was only Rs 2000. That was the brutal injustice done to pensioners by sixth CPC.
For the scale of Rs. 6500-10500, Rs 4200 was originally granted as Gr.Pay. Later on, the Finance Ministry issued an order on 13-11-2009 hiking the said Grade Pay to Rs. 4600. But, in 2017, for the purpose of Pension revision under seventh CPC, when the Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare prepared Concordance Tables for the said payscale of 6500-10500, Grade pay of Rs. 4200 was only taken into account.
AIBSNLPWA immediately pointed out this and took up the case through Bharat Pensioners Samaj. Karnataka P&T Pensioners Association, a member in SCOVA, also took up the matter. DoP&PW was not willing to change their stand.
Some aggrieved pensioners approached CAT. In all the cases disposed, the CAT directed the government to grant modified benefit with Grade Pay of Rs 4600.
WHO WILL GET THE BENEFIT?
All those DoT Pensioners retired from grade IV will get the benefit. Before October 1990, there were only few in grade IV in Telecom (in the pay scales of Rs 2000-3200 & 2000-3500). In 1990, BCR was introduced. 10 percent of Grade III was placed in grade IV. Later from 1-1-1996, they got the pay scale of Rs. 6500-10500. All those people retired from Grade IV before 1-10-2000 will get increase in their pension now. Once the revised Concordance Tables are issued by DoP&PW the concerned pensioners must apply to their CCAs with all available documents.
Note: above is not applicable to those BSNL staff retired after 1-10-2000 since there is no Grade Pay system in BSNL.
LATEST NEWS
Now, on 22-5-2019, the Department of Expenditure (Finance Ministry) issued a new concordance table for the above section of pensioners taking Rs 4600 as Grade Pay.
And today, 9-7-2019, the DoP&PW also has endorsed it. Now, the CCAs can revise the pension of such comrades, mentioned above. It may take some time for CCA offices to identify all affected people. Hence, after waiting for a month or so, it is better that concerned pensioners submit applications quoting the order given below.
READY RECKONER
Comrades,
I have prepared a Ready reckoner to understand the benefits. It will help our comrades to assist the family pensioners. Most of them may get an increase of Rs 600-850 in basic pension. It is given below:.... PSR
Click on the link to see Ready reckoner ready-reckoner.pdf
The Department of Telecom has issued a revised mapping of IDA pay-scales and CDA pay-scales and rate of Contribution to be paid by the CGHS beneficiaries to avail the services of CGHS. Seventh CPC payscales are taken into account for fixing the rate.
(Despite several attempts the order in pdf format could not be uploaded. It is given in our whatsapp group.. PSR)
DPE Order is given here. Please click on the link below:
All are aware that most of the Banks have centralized their pension processing functions. I collected the email Id of 43 CPPCs. 17 belong to SBI. 26 belong to other banks, one CPPC for each for entire India. When the rate of IDA is revised for BSNL pensioners I collect the DPE order through internet and forward the same to these 43 CPPCs. Some of them acknowledge immediately. As a result, those who draw pension through banks get the increased quantum of IDA promptly.
But, Post Office remained as the problematic area. Many HPOs are not crediting the revised IDA promptly. Now there is a change in Indiapost too. The pension processing is centralized in each circle. GM/Director of Postal Accounts has taken over the work. Head POs have no role except making the payment. There was some delay in May 2019 due to this change.Now it seems it is stabilized.
Unfortunately I could not collect the Email ID of the CPPCs of India Post.
Can anybody help me please?
I can send the DPE order to these CPPCs also if Email ID is available.
DPE order for IDA from July 2019 is expected today.
If CCAs credit the pension and DA directly to all then there is no problem.
....................................................................................................P S R
BSNL IN FOCUS
Now, the media attention is unusually focused on BSNL and MTNL. Every day, morning and evening, some new news item is appearing. Some are nothing but imagination.
It is certain that the new Government wants to do something regarding BSNL and MTNL. A high level committee is constituted to consider various options for revival of the two PSEs. Aruna Sundararajan (Secretary, Telecom), Seema Bahuguna (Secretary, DPE), Injeti Srinivas (Secretary, Corporate Affairs) and G C Murmu (Secretary, Expenditure) are members of the committee. They met today, 4-7-2019, in the presence of Cabinet Secretary. NO FINAL DECISION is taken today. As usual, the Committee decided to obtain legal opinion on implication of allotment of 4G Spectrum to BSNL and on monetization of assets of BSNL (surplus land, towers and fibre).
It means it will take some more time to see the final outcome.
Just ignore other news and views.
Com. J K Tripathy (CHQ Vice President), hands over a DD for Rs Two Lakh to Shri Navin Patnaik, Honourable Chief MInister of Odisha at Bhubaneshwar on 3-7-2019, being the first instalment of our contribution to the CMDRF of Odisha. Com. B N Behera (CS Odisha), Com. Bhaskar Nayak (CHQ Org. Secretary) are also seen in the picture. Circle Assn. has received the official Receipt.
BUSINESS STANDARD reports on 3-7-2019
In an attempt to rescue ailing state-owned telecom companies BSNL and MTNL, the government is considering an Rs 74,000-crore bailout plan. The government's rescue strategy involves offering a handsome exit package to thousands of employees, including an additional 5 per cent compensation (ex-gratia) to make the VRS attractive.
BSNL is one of the country's biggest loss making PSU, while MTNL is the third-highest loss making PSU. In FY19, BSNL was grappling with an estimated loss of Rs 13,804 core while MTNL saw a loss of Rs 3,398 crore.
The other state-owned company to have a loss higher than MTNL, apart from BSNL is Air India. If this package follows through then the two PSUs will overtake Air India as the biggest drain on the national exchequer, as mentioned in a report in Times of India.
Officials told the daily that the proposal for which a draft Cabinet note has been circulated said that 4G spectrum valued at over Rs 20,000 crore will be allotted by the government and the rollout cost of Rs 13,000 crore will be paid by the PSUs. The government will foot the bill of over Rs 40,000 crore towards VRS package and early retirement benefits.
The government also believes that the costs of the companies can be reduced by bringing down the retirement age to 58 years from 60 years and offering a lucrative VRS package, as mentioned in the daily.
The government also said that shutting down the PSUs is not much of an option as it will cost Rs 1.2 lakh crore and is unviable. The department of telecom said that strategic disinvestment may not find any takers due to the financial stress in the telecom sector but a joint venture can be explored.
BSNL and MTNL have witnessed poor management, high staff cost, government interference and slow pace in upgrading to new technology while competitors swiftly adapted to 4G and even 5G. These factors have led to a loss in market share in the mobile services business.
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