Raksha Bandhan 2013: 'Sending rakhis through post' back on track

Despite everything around us going high-tech and digital, the tradition of sending rakhisthrough post has seen a dramatic increase this year.

Thanks to social media, emails and text messaging, greeting near and dear ones on a festival is just a click away. But on Raksha Bandhan, every brother across the country wishes to flaunt that thread of love on his wrist, despite the distance separating him and his sister. And this is one time of the year, when the services of the postal department and other courier agencies are most sought after. With the advent of digital rakhis last year, the services of the postal department and courier agencies took a major beating. But this year, they are back on track!

Source:-The Times of India

VILLAGERS RAISE FUNDS TO BUILD POST OFFICE

KENDRAPADA: In this age of internet and mobile phones, when post offices have lost their relevance, Kuseapala here still believes in the traditional mode of communication. Kuseapala's 80-year-old post office has found a new address in a pucca house, which the locals help built recently.

The villagers said that building a one-room post office was not easy, especially when it came to garnering funds. But they take so much pride in the postal service that they all donated generously. "The mud house with a thatched roof was falling apart. Two months back, we started motivating the people to donate. We built up a corpus of Rs 1.5 lakh," said Biswanath Behera, 73, a retired engineer from the area, who donated Rs 10,000.

He pointed out that people in the villages still write letters, send and receive parcels. "They have great faith in the system and it's a way of life here. Courier services are more popular in the cities," he added.

Manoj Kumar Jena, a villager, couldn't control his joy. "I am so happy that we have a concrete room to house our post office. It was a long-standing demand. Now it has been fulfilled with our effort," he gushed.

Adhikari Golakha Bihari Das, Kuseapala sarpanch, said they had requested the department of posts many times to build a new room for the post office. "But our requests fell on deaf ears. Finally, we have done it," he said with pride, adding that he had donated Rs 5,000.

Post master of the district post office Bijaya Ketan Patnaik said all the 310 rural post offices have no permanent houses. "In many villages, post masters run the Extra Department Branch Post Offices (EDPOs) from their homes, or on the premises of gram panchayat offices and schools," he said.

Rural post masters are not permanent employees of the postal department, they are paid a monthly allowance of Rs 4,000 to Rs 6,000.

Source -Times of India

GPO, Head Post Office to get ATMs

In a welcome move, the Nagpur General Post Office (GPO) and Head Post Office at Itwari will open automated teller machines (ATMs) on their premises by September end. The work has already started and spots for the ATMs have been identified, said Vandita Kaul, post master general (PMG). "It would have been completed by mid September had it not been for the heavy rainfall," she added.

Along with the ATMs, core banking solution (CBS) software is also being introduced at select post offices under the pilot phase for upgrading postal banking.

RIGHT TO RECEIVE PENSION IS TREATED AS RIGHT TO PROPERTY, SAYS SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

In the absence of any provision in the pension rules, a State government cannot withhold a part of pension and/or gratuity during the pendency of departmental/criminal proceedings, the Supreme Court has held.

Giving this ruling, a Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and A.S. Sikri said: “It is an accepted position that gratuity and pension are not bounties. An employee earns these benefits by dint of his long, continuous, faithful and unblemished service. Right to receive pension was treated as right to property.”

Writing the judgment, Justice Sikri said: “According to Article 300 A of the Constitution, no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law. A person cannot be deprived of his pension without the authority of law. It follows that the attempt of the appellant [in this case the Jharkhand government] to take away a part of pension or gratuity or even leave encashment without any statutory provision and under the umbrage of administrative instruction cannot be countenanced.”

Referring to the contention that executive instructions had been issued by the appellant government, the Bench said: “It hardly needs to be emphasised that the executive instructions do not have statutory character and, therefore, cannot be termed as ‘law’ within the meaning of Article 300A of the Constitution. On the basis of such a circular, which is not having force of law, the appellant cannot withhold — even a part of pension or gratuity. So far as statutory rules are concerned, there is no provision for withholding pension or gratuity in the given situation. Had there been any such provision in these rules, the position would have been different.”

In the instant case, respondent Jitendra Kumar Srivastava was sanctioned 90 per cent provisional pension pending an enquiry. The remaining 10 per cent of his pension and salary was withheld. He was also not paid leave encashment and gratuity. The Jharkhand High Court directed the State government to release the withheld pension and salary and other benefits. The present appeals are directed against this judgment.

The Bench said: “We find there is no merit in the instant appeals as the impugned order of the High Court is without blemish. Accordingly, these appeals are dismissed with Rs. 10,000 costs each.”

Finance ministry asks India Post to reroute Bank proposal.

The expenditure department of the finance ministry has sent back India Post’s draft cabinet note seeking Rs.1,900 crore to set up a commercial bank to another wing of the ministry and asked it to first seek the approval of the expenditure finance committee (EFC). The entity is proposed to be named Post Bank of India.

The postal department is among 26 applicants that sought banking licences from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 1 July, part of the government’s initiative to expand the Rs.77 trillion banking industry and widen access to financial services among the 40% of the population that are yet not included in the system.

“Since the proposal has financial consequences, we have told India Post to first approach the expenditure finance committee with their proposal before going for an inter-ministerial consultation on the matter,” said a finance ministry official who didn’t want to be named.

A second finance ministry official confirmed this. He said the expenditure finance committee was yet to receive the note from the postal department. He said, however, that the committee was likely to clear the proposal once it’s received. 

“We cannot pre-empt how much money EFC will approve, however I am sure the proposal makes sense because they have such a vast network which they should utilize. The only thing is they have to develop the standards to meet the RBI guidelines,” he added.

Approval of the expenditure finance committee, headed by the expenditure secretary, is required for proposals involving spending of more than Rs.300 crore and the setting up of new autonomous organizations, regardless of the amount.

The postal department, faced with the dwindling of its main business as more people switch to electronic means of communication and courier companies, wants to leverage its extensive reach across India by entering the banking business. It’s currently involved in the financial industry to the extent that it runs post-office savings schemes, besides collecting deposits for tax-free savings programmes.

In its guidelines for new banking licences announced on 22 February, RBI required applicants to prove their eligibility on several fronts—from promoter holding to past experience to business plans. The minimum capital required by applicants for licences is Rs.500 crore, and foreign shareholding in the new banks is capped at 49% for the first five years.

The new banks have to be set up under a non-operative financial holding company (NOFHC), RBI said. They also have to maintain a minimum capital adequacy ratio—the ratio of capital to risk-weighted assets, a measure of financial strength—of 13% for the first three years. New banks also need to list their shares within three years of starting operations.

The finance ministry has been reluctant to allow India Post to enter the commercial banking business.

In order to apply for a licence, the department of posts will have to create a legal entity to segregate its banking and postal businesses, said a second finance ministry official.

“It will have to be a government-owned company or a bank under a statute since a government department cannot become a bank,” said the official, who didn’t want to be identified.

“Added to that, the postal department has no experience when it comes to giving credit. They have only been taking deposits till now. Sanctioning and disbursing credit needs an entirely different aptitude,” the official said. “We had conveyed our views to EY, when they had approached us on this issue,” he added. EY (formerly Ernst & Young) is consultant to India Post’s bid for a banking licence.

A third finance ministry official said it will be difficult for India Post to get a banking licence from RBI since the guidelines call for a non-operative financial holding company.

Besides that, although India Post boasts of a strong 150,000 branch network, a majority of these may not get converted into bank branches in the event it gets a licence, this official added.

“Expertise in (handling) National Savings Certificates will not be enough for giving credit,” he added, making the point that the department has no specialized experience in the business.

India Post had 154,822 branches across the country as of 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 number of rural branches run by India’s banks.

RBI has clarified that the conditions it has set are merely the necessary ones and that all applicants meeting them won’t be given a licence. The central bank will screen the applications, refer them to an advisory committee and take a final call on licences based on its recommendations.

If the focus is financial inclusion, the focus should be on looking for solutions rather than raising barriers, said Ashvin Parekh, national leader, global financial services at EY.

“Nobody is saying to convert the existing Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) into a commercial bank. Post Bank of India has to be a subsidiary which needs to be registered as a company and the government equity in this new entity could be diluted,” he said. Through the POSB, India Post collects deposits starting as low as Rs.20 with an annual interest rate of 4%.

Naina Lal Kidwai, country head of HSBC India and president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry lobby group, said in an interview that though she is opposed to creating any more public sector banks, she supports the idea of the Post Bank of India.

“The postal authority is a very interesting one because of its ability to deliver cash where banks have never been able to reach. To create a post bank, which many countries have done, is quite interesting. So for those exceptions, we could and should look at giving (it a) banking licence,” she added.

However, Kidwai wants the government to reduce its share in the banking system from 70% now to 30-50%, besides which she’d like to see consolidation of the sector.

“We have to fund such banks through taxpayers’ money. These banks can rarely raise money from the capital market. Some of those can actually be merged so that we create fewer banks. So we should see a restructuring of our entire banking sector,” she added.

HOLDING OF COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION FOR FILLING UP OF THE POST OF MTS FOR THE VACANCIES (25%) FOR THE YEAR 2012 AS PER THE REVISED RECRUITMENT RULES AND REVISED SYLLABUS

POST OFFICE SAVING BANK INTEREST CHART

GDS bonus case is actively under consideration at MOF

It is learnt that DOP has again taken up the case with Department of Expenditure and Department of Finance for enhancement of bonus for Gramin Dak Sevaks to Rs. 3500/- at par with the regular Departmental employees CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

Courtesy : http://rmschqfour.blogspot.in/

GRANT OF PERSONAL COMPUTER ADVANCE FOR THE YEAR 21013-14 - REGARDING CALLING FOR APPLICATIONS