NATIONAL FEDERATION OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES
REGIONAL CO-ORDINATION COMMITTEE OF POSTAL
EMPLOYEES UNIONS,
ASSAM AND NE CIRCLES, GUWAHATI 781001
No. RCC (P)/Assam & NE/7th CPC
Memorandum Dated
11/05/2015
To
The Hon’ble Chairman
7th Central Pay Commission
Camp at Shillong
Subject: - Memorandum on Assam and North Eastern Region Issues.
Respected Sir,
On behalf of the Regional Co-ordination
Committee of Postal Employees Unions comprising all the Circle Units of Assam
and NE Circles of the Postal, RMS&MMS unions affiliated to National
Federation of Postal Employees (NFPE) we like to submit before the 7 CPC the
following issues specific to North Eastern Region including Assam for careful
consideration and positive recommendation.
We, the National Federation of Postal
Employees (NFPE) represent more than 98% of 17000 odd regular Postal, RMS, MMS
and GDS employees working in Assam and NE Circles of the Department of Posts.
Geographically the North Eastern Region is encompassed by international borders
except being connected by a very small corridor to rest of the country. Almost
90% of the areas under NE Region spread over to hazardous hilly tracks and
dense forests. Most of the areas are terrorist affected and normal life is a
distant dream for common peace loving people. Even after 67 years of
independence there was no rail connectivity to the state capitals of NE Region
except Guwahati in Assam. Only a few months back, the state capitals of Tripura
and Arunachal Pradesh were fortunate enough to have a rail connectivity, that
too with a mere obsolete Metre Gauge connection to Agartala. Even today, there
is no double railway line in the region resulting in snail pace momentum of the
trains in the region. NE Region cannot dream of electric railway line at a time
when elsewhere in the country bullet trains are going to be a reality.
Four-lining of the Highways has almost lost its direction in the region.
Naturally the movement of Goods and Services has become dearer and dearer
resulting in higher cost of living in comparison to other parts of the country.
During the last decade or so, the North
Eastern region could not attract even 1% of Total Investment of India, whether
it is private or public. Banking expansion and Credit-Deposit Ratio in
the region is far below the all India average (1.81% against all India average
of 2.45%). Per capita availability of electricity in the region is only 153 KW
against an all India average of 879 KW. Investment plus CDR is only -0.24%
against all India average of 4.25%. Consequently there is no industrial
development; almost nil public investment and rise in unemployment is alarming
in the region.
In a nutshell, this region is far behind the
other parts of the country in respect of development as well as access to
government and public services. Facing all these odds, our employees are
serving the people day and night even in the most difficult terrains of the
hilly tracks of the region.
Under these circumstances while endorsing the Common Memorandum submitted by the National Council Staff Side, JCM and
Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers on general issues of the Central Government
employees andNFPE-FNPO Joint Memorandum on Postal Employees common issues, we
hereby submit the following issues specific to North Eastern Region
including Assam for careful consideration and positive recommendation.
Special Duty Allowance
(a) We fully endorse the views expressed in the
common Memorandum submitted by both the National Council Staff Side JCM and
also the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers.
In view of the peculiar circumstances still prevailing, rather the increasing
hazardous situation and regional disparities as explained in our para 2-4
above, we also reiterate that in consideration of such peculiar situation
prevailing in the North Eastern States i.e insurgency, high cost of living,
inaccessibility etc .and continued discontents amongst the CG employees working
in this region , the staff side in the National Council raised the demand for a
special allowance to be granted to employees posted in North Eastern States.
The Government agreed to set up a committee to look into the grievances. The
committee suggested for grant of such an allowance. However, when the
Government issued orders, the allowance was in fact granted only to those
personnel with an all India transfer liability or only for Officers in Group A
services. The said decision generated resentment amongst the other segment of
employees. The North Easter region witnessed tumultuous agitations
including a 38 days continuous strike by the postal employees, the longest
ever strike of the government employees in the country. Some employees approached the Court and
obtained favourable orders. But the Government refused to implement those court
orders for similarly placed employees.
The matter was brought before the 6th CPC. The
6th CPC recommended extension of the said benefit to all sections of the
employees. Ultimately the Government issued orders to cover all employees with
the special duty allowance in 2008 by which all personnel posted in N E Region
become entitled for special duty allowance at 12.5%.
But on 10th February, 2009, the Government suo
moto issued an O.M (F.No.14017/4/2005 AIS(11) according to which an additional
monetary incentive to officers belonging to North East Cadres of the All India
Services @ 25% of their basic pay + Grade Pay was granted. The additional monetary incentive was given
the nomenclature “Special allowance for Officers belonging to North East Cadres
of all India Services”. If the grant of the allowance is justified on the
ground of remoteness, arduous environment, endemic insurgency etc, how then it
could be denied to the employees who are to face the same situation throughout
their service career. The order is discriminatory and repetition of
the efforts of DOPT while granting SDA earlier, which had to be rescinded on
the recommendation of 6th CPC. We request the 7th CPC to recommend that in the
light of the above cited order dated 10-2-2009 the employees may be granted Special Duty Allowance @ 37 ½ % of pay.
(b) We further request the Commission to consider
the fact that SDA was being paid to the postal employees from 01-11-1983 as
result of court verdicts and agitations. But suddenly the same was stopped wef
01-06-2002 without any valid reason causing further accumulation of resentment,
that was somewhat diluted when the 6th CPC regularized wef 01-09-2008. But recently All
India Radio Directorate has issued an order vide its Memo No 15(8)2008-A&G
Dated 30/31 March, 2015 to pay the arrear up to 31-08-2008 in respect of its
employees similarly placed with the Postal Employees.(copy enclosed)
We, therefore, request the Commission to
recommend in favour of ending this discrimination by paying the entire
arrear upto 31-08-2008 in respect of postal employees also.
Compensatory City allowance
We fully endorse the views expressed by the
Confederation in para 15.3 in its Memorandum in respect of admissibility CCA.
We further reiterate that
“There is a condition that CCA is not admissible in respect of the
cities in the regions where employees are getting Special Compensatory
Allowance (SCA) in the entire region. The restriction that two compensatory
allowances (CCA and SCA) are not admissible at a time should be withdrawn
considering the fact that cost of living in the cities in the regions is higher
than the suburban and the rural areas. That means, CCA should be admissible the
cities in addition to SCA which is admissible for whole of the region.”
Transport
allowance.
We fully endorse the views expressed in the
common Memorandum submitted by both the National Council Staff Side JCM and
also the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers as under:
The 5th CPC had introduced transport allowance
for employees working in classified towns on account of various factors like
unprecedented growth of city limits, increase in volume of traffic and non
availability of residential accommodation at reasonable rents near offices,
which are usually located in the heart of cities. If these were the factors it
appears that the 5th CPC did not take into account that it is usually a low
paid employee who finds residence at a very long distance from his office
whereas officers are offered residences very near to their offices. If,
therefore, transport allowance was meant to defray the transportation charges
from residence to office and back the higher rates should have been recommended
for the low paid employees who were residing at a distant places. Since the 6th
CPC’s recommendation in this regard was implemented, there had been several
rounds of increase in the fuel charges making a cascading impact on the public
transport fares. Taking these factors into account, we suggest that the following
rates of transport allowance may please be recommended.
Pay Range
X classified city
Other
places.
Pay upto Rs. 75,000
Rs. 7500 + DA Rs. 3750 +DA
Above Rs.
75,000 Rs. 6500 +DA
Rs. 3500+ DA
Considering the communication bottleneck still
prevailing in the region as explained in our para 2-4 above, we request the
Commission to recommend Transport allowance in respect of all places of North
Eastern Region at par with an uniform rate of X classified cities.
Additional
Monetary Incentive for Personnel Posted in N E Region
In accordance with the MOF/DOE OM No
20014/3/83-E.IV Dated 14th Dec, 1983 Paragraph IX and
reiterated from time to time the employees transferred to NE Region from
other parts of the country and also transferred within the region are enjoying
the benefits of Double HRA and Hostel Subsidy etc whereas these are denied to
the local employees in respect of transfer from one state to another.
We therefore request the Commission to recommend
extension of same facilities to the local employees of the region in respect of
inter-state transfer also.
Rent
Free Accommodation
Often, the employees are asked to be stationed
at remote/inhospitable areas for operational purposes. They are not provided
with any facility. We suggest that they must at least be provided with rent
free residential accommodation, for it is difficult for them to get any
residential accommodation in view of the peculiar situation as described in
para 2-4 above.
Leave
Travel Concession
Leave Travel Concession is a facility extended
to the Government employees, which enables them to avail holidays and undertake
travel as a tourist . The facility provides him with an opportunity to be away
from the monotonous daily routine and be with his family members without the
tension of the official duties. It is an established fact that if employee is
encouraged to take such holidays they will reform rejuvenated and the employer
is benefitted through his increased productivity.
Over the years, on representation from
employees, the concession has been widened. However, some aspects of this
facility require certain further relaxations/improvements. We enumerate those
as under:-
1. Permission for air journey for all categories of employees to
and from NE Region.
2. Permission for personnel posted in NE Region for a journey
within NE Region.
3. To increase the periodicity of the LTC to once in two years.
4. Explore the possibility of allowing an employer to undertake
tour outside India, once in his service career in lieu of the LTC.
We further request the 7th CPC to consider
recommending our suggestions for improvements to the Government.
1. Home town conversion facility should be made available
to all irrespective of whether home town is in the HQ station or outside the HQ
station.
2. LTC by air should be made available to all
employees working in the NE Region irrespective of whether it is Home Town or
All India LTC.
3. LTC by air should be provided all over India
after reaching certain scale of pay.
Medical
Facilities [CGHS/CS(MA) Rules]
We fully endorse the views expressed by the
Confederation in para 16.10 in its Memorandum in respect of medical facilities
under CGHS and CS (MA) Rules.
Considering the serious transport bottleneck in the NE Region and
due to lack of proper medical facilities in the NE Region, Air Lifting
Facilities should be provided to referred medical cases of NE Region in and
outside the region.
Grameen
Dak Sewaks (GDS)
(a) We fully endorse the following views expressed
in in the common Memorandum submitted by both the National Council Staff Side
JCM and also the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers in
respect of inclusion GDS in the 7 CPC and also consideration of their causes by
the 7 CPC .
“We solicit the kind reference of the 7th CPC to
the observation made by the 4th CPC in Page No.4 Part-I, Vol-I of their report,
which is reproduced for ready reference:
“The matter is however beyond controversy after
the decision of Supreme Court in Gokulananda Das Case (1957 1SCR679) where it
has been declared that an extra Departmental labour is not a casual worker but
“holds a post under the administrative control of the state” and that while
such a post is outside the regular civil services, there is no doubt that it is
a post under the “state”. In view of the pronouncement, we were unable to
accept the contention that the Extra Departmental Employees were outside the
purview of the terms of our Commission. They no doubt have their own peculiar
conditions of their own service and in that sense their case is somewhat
special. We therefore could not exclude them from our consideration, but we
accepted the Government suggestion for the setting up of a one man committee to
look into their conditions of service as was done in the 2nd and 3rd Pay
Commission. Accordingly, a one man’s Committee under Shri R.R. Savoor was set
up vide DGPNT’s Resolution No. 6/29/83 PA.II dated 5.11.1984.”
The argument advanced by the Postal Department
that they are outside the civil service except for the purpose of CCS(CCA)
Rules (disciplinary purposes) is untenable. That being so, the Gramin Dak
Sevaks deserve to be in the purview of the 7th CPC terms of reference. The
experiment of getting their wages revised through a one man Committee in the
past had resulted in a total deprivation of all benefits other than pay which
as civil servants all employees of the Government of India have been bestowed.
The organizations in the Postal Department who
represent the Gramin Dak Sevaks will be submitting an elaborate memorandum
containing the proposal for wage revision, revision of the existing benefits
and allowances including grant of pensionery benefits for GDS. We request the
7th CPC to consider their memorandum and make appropriate recommendations. We
also request that the Commission not to agree with the probable suggestion of
the Government to set up a separate committee as was done earlier.”
We, therefore, request the Commission to
consider the Memorandum submitted by All India Postal Employees Union, GDS
(NFPE) and to recommend favourably to the Government to improve the living
conditions of lowest paid employees of the Department of Posts.
(b) We also request the Commission to
bring the GDS employees of this region at par with other postal employees in
respect Special Duty Allowance, CCA, Transport allowance, LTC, Medical
facilities etc.
With regards,
Yours faithfully
D. K.
Debnath Garga
Talukdar
Saifur Zaman
Pankaz Kr Das
Convenor
RCC CS
R III Assam
CS P III Assam
CS Admin Union Assam
Biditmoy
Barman Mainul
Haque Intazur
Rahman
Pankaj Bharali
CS SBCO Assam
CS P IV Assam
CS R IV Assam
CSGD
(NFPE)Assam
Ramani Bhattacharyya
B K Sharma Lakhamti
Wahlang Uttam
Chanda
CS P
III NE CS Admin
Union NE CS P IV NE
CS
GDS (NFPE)NE
