HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015

CWC Meeting on 11.01.2015 at Patna GPO

    Under the provision contained in clause 2 of constitution of Association, it is hereby notified for information of all the Office bearers and members of the Association that next CWC of the Association will be held in the Conference Hall of Patna GPO on 11.01.2015 at 11:30hrs.

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NEW Post office A/C opening form

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Proposed revision in the, Recruitment Rules (RRs) of Indian Postal Service, Group 'A'- regarding.

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Letter-post still key revenue-maker for world’s postal services – UN agency

1 December 2014 – Despite an overall decline in global letter mailings, traditional letter-post still contributes almost half of all postal revenues, the United Nations global post agency has reported, noting that in an ever-evolving communication landscape, postal services still remain a critical lynchpin for international networks.

 

In a press release citing the latest postal statistics for 2013, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) today said that the downward trend in global letter-post traffic had been offset by a 5.8 per cent uptick in parcel volumes in all regions of the world, except Africa and the Asia-Pacific, where slight decreases were observed. José Ansón, a UPU economist, explained that infrastructure difficulties and competition could be to blame for the lagging figures in both regions.

 

Although international letter-post volumes have decreased, Mr. Ansón added, the average weight of individual items is heavier as “a significant number of small packets generated by e-commerce seen to be moving through the letter-post stream.” In all, he estimated, some 240 million small packets made up letter-post volumes in 2013, permitting postal services worldwide to reap the benefits of e-commerce.

 

In addition, the UN agency continued, letter-post accounts for 43.4 per cent of global public postal revenues, which reached $234 billion. In some regions, the contribution to revenues was even higher, reaching 59.6 per cent.

 

Against the backdrop of a radically changing communication environment, Mr. Ansón noted that the public postal service nonetheless remains widely accessible. There are currently more than five million postal employees around the world in 663,000 post offices and, annually, postal services process and deliver an estimated 368 billion letter-post items and 6.4 billion parcels.

 

“Despite the transformation the global postal sector is experiencing, it is interesting to note that the global network is not retracting,” he continued. “Rather than seeing a decline of post offices or access points and staff, we are seeing a relative stabilization on both counts. The postal web remains the largest physical distribution network on the planet.”

 

This year, 2014, is a milestone year as it also marks the 140th anniversary of the UPU, whose establishment helped postal services pave the way to globalized trade and commerce.

 

With almost 3 per cent of the world’s inhabitants remaining without postal services, including 13 per cent of the African population and eight per cent of citizens in Arab countries, the UN agency has long advocated for increased investment in postal services so that they may reach deprived and rural communities in the hope of stimulating global and local economies and improving livelihoods.

Report of the Task Force on Leveraging the Post Office Network

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Alignment of Service Rules with the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013.

To view DoPT Memo No. 11013/2/2014 Estt.(A.III) dated 27th November 2014, please CLICK HERE 

Aadhaar based authentication of Life Certificate for pensioners.

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Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Third Amendment Rules, 2014.

In the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, in rule 11, in the Explanation, after item (viii), the following item Shall be inserted namely :-

"(ix) any compensation awarded on the recommendation of the Complaints Committee referred to in the proviso to sub-rule (2) of rule 14 and established in the Department of the Government of India for inquiring into any complaint of sexual harassment within the meaning of rule-3 C of the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964". 

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Central Civil Services (Conduct) Second Amendment Rules, 2014.

In the Central Civil Services (Conduct), Rules, 1964, for rule 3C, the following rule shall be 'substituted, namely :-

3C. Prohibition of sexual harassment of working women, - (1) No Government servant shall indulge in any act of sexual harassment of any woman at any work place.

(2) Every Government servant who is incharge of a work place shaii take appropriate steps to prevent sexual harassment to any woman at the work place.

Explanation. - (I) For the purpose of this rule, -

(a) "sexual harassment" includes any one or more of the following acts or behaviour (whether directly or by implication) namely : -

(i) physical contact and advances; or

(ii) a demand or request for sexual favours; or

(iii) making sexually coloured remarks; or

(iv) showing pornography; or

(vi) any other unwelcome physical, verbal, non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature.

(b) the following circumstances, among other circumstances, if it occurs or is present in relation to or connected with any act or behaviour of sexual harassment may amount to sexual harassment : -

(I) implied or explicit promise of preferential treatment in employment; or

(ii) implied or explicit threat of detrimental treatment in employment; or

(iii) implied or explicit threat about her present or future employment status; or

(iv) interference with her work or creating an intimidating or offensive or hostile work environment for her; or

(v) humiliating treatment likely to affect her health or safety.

(c)"workplace" includes,-

(i) any department, organisation, undertaking, establishment, enterprise, institution, office, branch or unit which is established, owned, controlled or wholly or substantially financed by funds provided directly or indirectly by the Central Government;

(ii) hospitals or nursing homes;

(iii) any 'sports institute, stadium, sports complex or competition or games venue, whether residential or not used for training, sports or other activities relating thereto;

(iv) any place visited by the employee arising out of or during the course of employment including transportation provided by the employer for undertaking such journey;

(v) a dwelling place or a house.'. 

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Pre-implementation activities towards preparedness of Branch Post Office for Rural ICT implementation:-

I.        The BO should have table to place the Handheld Device and for charging the device.

II.   The electrical power connection is required to charge the Solar UPS wherever power is available. In the locations where electrical power is not available, the UPS will be charged from Solar Panel.

III.   The locations where electrical power connection is there, it should have proper earthing and with one or two plug points along with on/off switch.

IV.   The above site preparation is to be done before the roll out starts for the particular Division.

V.   The data on BO such as the name of the BPM, contact details, address of the BO with land marks etc. may be updated and kept ready.

VI.   The availability of the network connectivity (Vodafone/ BSNL / Airtel etc.)at the BO location may also accessed and the best signal available in the BO may be identified and kept in order to facilitate the Vendor with details to drive best out of the project. If the network signal is not available, we have to identify as Off-line BO.

VII.   Similarly identification of the BOs where the solar UPS is not required due to installation problems of the solar panel or good power availability for more than 6 hours daily, has to be also done.  

To view the format for collection of desired information in respect of Branch Post Offices please Click Here.

The complete information in respect of all BOs is to be uploaded to the specific webpage domain name (to be circulated shortly) on the India Post website by 30-12-2014.

Source : Department of Posts (RB Division) Letter No.01-07/2014-RB dated 27-11-2014.

India Post collects over Rs 280 crore via Cash-on-Delivery for e-commerce firms

Within a year of joining the e-commerce bandwagon as a distribution channel, government entity India Post has transacted business worth Rs 280 crore in the Cash-on-Delivery (CoD) segment alone for firms like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon.

While the amount of revenue generated for itself could not be ascertained, government officials said India Post is very keen on developing its e-commerce related services as a major revenue model going ahead.

"India Post collected over Rs 280 crore from consumers and gave it to e-commerce firms, since CoD facility was started in December 2013. The department with its huge network can serve as the best agency for not just delivering products, but also collecting money," a government official said.

However, this is a small chunk of the overall market size for e-commerce in India, which runs into billions of dollars already and is growing at a fast pace every year.

CoD has emerged as one of the most sought after services for e-commerce entities and 50-75 per cent of orders are placed with various online retailers with this payment option, while the remaining opt for credit card or bank payments.

In India, customers tend to prefer CoD as the online payment modes are yet to catch up in many parts of the country while many people are not comfortable with advance payments for products purchased online.

India Post's cash handling services like core banking solutions, money transfer and a robust account system can further help e-commerce firms in collecting cash from users in urban as well as rural areas, the official said.

India Post has about 1.55 lakh post offices, making it the world's largest postal network. On an average, a post office serves 21.21 sq km area and about 7,175 people.

Another official said various e-commerce firms have been using India Posts CoD facility since it was introduced. Firms like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, Shopclues, Naaptol, Telebrands and Homeshop18 are some of them.

India Post has set up booking counters in the premises of some customers like Amazon and Naaptol, while for Snapdeal it is exploring setting up of e-commerce booking kiosks in post office locations.

Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has also said previously that India Post is best suited to offer delivery services to e-commerce players, given its wide reach across rural, urban and semi-urban areas.

The Minister has directed officials from the Department of Posts to focus on opportunities in e-commerce sector.

India Post is also ramping up its infrastructure to grab a major chunk of the distribution, delivery or logistics, which will touch about $9 billion by 2021. According to market experts, e-commerce business in India was about $6 billion in value in 2012 and is expected to touch $76 billion by 2021 of which distribution, delivery and logistics constitutes around 12 per cent.

PARIVARTAN - IT Project Newsletter || First edition (Hindi)

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Central govt employees to file assets details by December 31: Govt

New Delhi: All central government employees have to file the details of their assets and liabilities along with that of their spouses and dependent children as mandated under the Lokpal Act by December 31, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday (26/11/2014).

As per the rules notified under the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act in July this year, every public servant who has filed declarations, information and annual returns of property under the provisions of the rules applicable to such public servants shall file the revised declarations as on August 1 to the competent authority on or before September 15.

The provision of the said rules has subsequently been amended by which the time limit for furnishing of such information or return by public servants has been extended till December 31, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh said in a written reply.

The declarations under the Lokpal Act are in addition to similar ones filed by the employees under various services rules.

All Group A, B and C employees are supposed to file a declaration under the new rules. There are about 26 lakh employees in these three categories, as per latest government data.

The Personnel Ministry has also issued new forms for filing these returns which have fields for mentioning details of cash in hand, bank deposits, investment in bonds, debentures, shares and units in companies or mutual funds, insurance policies, provident fund, personal loans and advance given to any person or entity, among others.

The employees need to declare motor vehicles, aircraft, yachts or ships, gold and silver jewellery and bullion possessed by them, their spouses and dependent children.

New RBI guidelines: India Post’s long wait to become a bank may be finally over - NEWS

The final guidelines on differentiated banks, spelled out by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday (27/11/2014), has paved the way for India’s postal department to fulfill its long-cherished dream of wearing the hat of a banker.

India Post is now likely to apply to become a small finance bank, according to a senior department official.

‘Certainly, it (the guidelines for small and payments banks), looks interesting,” the official told FirstBiz on condition of anonymity. The department will conduct a feasibility study and will take a final call on the matter, the official said.

On Thursday evening, the RBI announced the final rules for payments banks and small banks. Payments banks can engage in accepting small deposits, offer ATM/debit cards, payments and remittance services through various channels and offer financial products like mutual fund units and insurance products.

Small finance banks, on the other hand, are almost like full service commercial banks. But, these banks cannot engage in large value transactions since 75 percent of their loans must be lent to the so-called priority sector. For existing banks, this requirement is 40 percent. Also, at least 50 percent of their loan portfolio should constitute loans and advances of up to Rs 25 lakh.

What is means is majority of the loans of smaller banks must be lent to agriculture, micro-credit and other weaker sections.

But small banks have plenty of headroom to actively compete in the home loan and SME loan segments with other banks, even within this limit.

A small bank permit makes more sense to India Post than becoming a payments bank since the department has long cherished the dream of a lender.

The Postal department, which was among the 25 contenders for a full service banking licence last year, didn’t manage to get into the final list since the UPA-government wasn’t keen to support the move and refused to provide the department with the minimum capital required to set up a commercial bank.

But the government is unlikely to deny the chance to India Post this time since small finance banks will not deal in large value credit transactions.

Since the new set of banks will primarily operate among the unbanked and weaker sections, risks arising out of large-value corporate loans are limited.

Also, capital is unlikely to become a problem since under the new guidelines, both small banks and payments banks need an entry capital of Rs 100 crore, as against Rs 500 crore needed for full service banks.

According to the RBI guidelines, small finance banks can gradually grow to a full service commercial bank if the apex bank finds merit in the proposal

OBCs in Government Services

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions

03-December-2014 13:46 IST

OBCs in Government Services

As per information received from various Ministries/ Departments till date, the representation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), as on 01.01.2013, in 69 Central Government Ministries/Departments was 5,23,721 which is 17.74% of 29,52,080 employees.

The reasons for lower representation of Other Backward Classes in services are identified as under-:

(i) Reservation for Other Backward Classes started only from the year 1993.

(ii) Other Backward Classes candidates who were appointed up to 1993, that is before introduction of reservation for the Other Backward Classes, are not included for counting the representation.

(iii) There is generally a time gap between occurrence of vacancies and filling thereof as recruitment is a time consuming process.

(iv) Some reserved posts for Other Backward Classes remain vacant due to non-availability of suitable candidates of reserved category.

(v) Some of the selected Other Backward Classes candidates do not join the service or leave the service after joining because they get better opportunities elsewhere.

Reservation in Central Government jobs for Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes employees is provided at the rate of 27%, 15% and 7.5%, respectively. As per information received till date from 69 Ministries/ Departments, the representation of Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as on 01.01.2013, was 17.74%, 17.57% and 7.73%, respectively.

Instructions have been issued  in June, 2013 to all concerned to make concerted efforts to fill up the backlog reserved vacancies. A committee was constituted under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to analyse the reasons for less employability of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes in Government sector and to suggest remedial measures. Keeping in view the recommendations of the Committee, various time bound measures have been identified and intimated to concerned Ministries/Departments to fill up such backlog vacancies.

This was stated by Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to Kumari Shobha Karandlaje in the Lok Sabha today. 

Filing Assets and Liabilities

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Filing Assets and Liabilities

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions

03-December-2014 13:44 IST

Filing Assets and Liabilities

Section 44 of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 mandates that every public servant (as defined in the Act, which includes Ministers, Members of Parliament, Government employees, employees of statutory bodies, PSUs, etc.) shall make a declaration of his assets and liabilities as well of his spouse and dependent children in the manner as provided by or under the said Act. In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) read with clause (k) and clause (l) of sub-section (2) of section 59 of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 (1 of 2014), read with section 44 and section 45 of the said Act, the Central Government has notified the Public Servants (Furnishing of Information and Annual Return of Assets and Liabilities and the Limits for Exemption of Assets in Filing Returns) Rules, 2014 in the official Gazette on 14th July, 2014, which, inter alia, contain the forms in which such information/return is required to be filed.

Subsequently, concerns and apprehensions were raised by several Ministries/Departments and other stakeholders, inter alia, about the complexity involved in furnishing the desired details in the forms prescribed under the Rules. Accordingly, the Government of India vide its order dated 28-08-2014, constituted a Committee to simplify the forms and the process in which public servants shall make declaration of assets and liabilities. The said Committee has submitted its First Report on 01-10-2014, recommending simplified formats for declaration of moveable property and for declaration of debts and other liabilities by public servants.

The Public Servants (Furnishing of Information and Annual Return of Assets and Liabilities and the Limits for Exemption of Assets in Filing Returns) Rules, 2014 have also been amended by a notification dated 8th September, 2014, by which the time limit, for furnishing of such information/return by public servants, has been extended till 31st December, 2014.

This was stated by Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to Shri Sudheer Gupta & others in the Lok Sabha today.

India Post to shake Nationalised Banks and Indian Banking industry

The initiative of India Post to connect Post Offices through Core Banking Solution will shake the banking industry shortly.  Even though Post offices are doing Small saving activities as an agent of Ministry of Finance, they have the potential in terms of deposit backings, wide network across the country and strong employee support to shake the industry.

Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) which is called as Poor’s Bank has the major share of Deposits in India compared to any other banks.  Since India Post is a government Institution working without profit motive, getting the exact figures of deposits and number of account was difficult compared to full-fledged banks with corporate entity.  So till now the actual figure were unknown to everyone.

Now the scenario has been changed when Post Offices started getting migrated to Core Banking Solution.  When a Post Office gets migrated, the exact figures of number of accounts and total deposit amount will be generated.  Through this figures everyone can see the strength of Post Office Saving Bank in India.

India Post successfully migrated its first office to Core Banking in December 2013. Like any others big public sector and private sector banks, India Post is using Finacle, the leading Core Banking Solution from Infosys for their banking renovation.  Now India Post is near to reach its first milestone of 1000 CBS Post Offices in India and expecting this by December 2014. Till 27.11.2014 total of 961 Post offices have been migrated to CBS platform.

India Post is planning to include 25000 plus Post Offices in Core Banking network with in few years.  By this mission all the departmental Post Offices will come under this CBS category Post Offices.  Now itself all these offices are computerised and they are doing banking transactions using Sanchay Post software. Even if we take number as 25000, the figure is not at all a small one when compared to other big nationalised banks.

As per the Annual Report 2013-14 State Bank of India has only 16069 branches including 15869 domestic branches and 190 foreign branches. If we include the branches of Associate banks too, a count of about 5700 more branches will be added to this list.  Even after adding the associate banks to this list SBI have only 21769 branches across the world.  The second largest public sector bank is Punjab National Bank.  They are following far behind with only 6206 branches (6201 domestic branches and 5 foreign branches)

If we take the amount of deposit as criteria, India Post will again be the number one in the industry.  Only 961 Post Offices have been migrated to Core Banking till 27.11.2014, but the value of deposits in these migrated offices crossed Rs. 87204 Crores.  Total of 5.51 Crores account have been migrated to this new platform.   This is from only nearly 4% of total Post Offices to be migrated to Core Banking.  If we take the proportionate figure, deposits will surely cross 20 Lakh Cores rupees after migration of all computerised Post Offices.  State Bank of India have only deposit of rupees 13.94 Lakh Crores as per annual report 2013-14.  Number of branches and total deposit value of major nationalised banks are shown below for comparative analysis.

SL NO	Name of Banks	No. of CBS branches (as on 31.03.2014)	Total Deposit ( in Crores)
1	India Post (POSB)	*25000	*22,68,574
2	State Bank of India	16069	13,94,409
3	Punjab National Bank	6206	4,51,397
4	Bank of Baroda	5062	5,68,894
5	Canara Bank	4755	4,20,723
6	Bank of India	4671	4,78,695
7	Central Bank of India	4336	2,40,069
8	Syndicate Bank	3251	2,12,343

                       

                     * Expected numbers after migration

Commercial banks are attracting customers by giving value added services like ATM, Debit/Credit cards, Internet Banking, mobile banking, etc. Now most of the people are depending banks for such needs. In order to compete with commercial banks or for attracting new customers or giving more value to their account holders, India Post started various value added services like Internet Banking, ATM, etc. Now the ATM facility is introduced in limited areas but the Department of Post is planning to install 2800 ATMs by the end of 2015.

By the end of 2015 CBS network of India Post may be connected to other banking networks and thereby a Post Office customer can make use of all the facilities (except loans) now a commercial bank customer can enjoy.  If the value added services of India Post is a success, surely it will lose the customers of commercial banks. And in such circumstances people in the rural areas will not approach Banks, normally located in urban or semi-urban areas for transacting in SB accounts.  Now Savings Bank account in Post Office are not attractive only because of lack of availability of value added services like ATM, Debit cards, net banking,etc.  Now Department of Post is taking all efforts to fill this gap occurred in the past. 

Finally expecting that today’s technological renovation of India Post will surely shake Indian Banking industry in near future in various ways.  Let us wait and see.