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Govt Doubles Monthly Bonus Calculation Ceiling To Rs 7,000

New Delhi: The Cabinet today decided to double the wage ceiling for calculating bonus to Rs 7,000 per month for factory workers and establishments with 20 or more workers.

“The Payment of Bonus (Amendment) Bill, 2015 to enhance the monthly bonus calculation ceiling to Rs 7,000 per month from existing Rs 3,500 was approved by Union Cabinet here,” a source said after the Cabinet meeting.

The amendment bill will be made effective from April 1, 2015. Now the bill will be tabled in Parliament for approval.

The bill also seeks to enhance the eligibility limit for payment of bonus from the salary or wage of an employee from Rs 10,000 per month to Rs 21,000.

The Payment of Bonus Act 1965 is applicable to every factory and other establishment in which 20 or more persons are employed on any day during an accounting year.

The bill also provides for a new proviso in Section 12 which empowers the central government to vary the basis of computing bonus.

At present, under Section 12, where the salary or wage of an employee exceeds Rs 3,500 per month, the minimum or maximum bonus payable to employees are calculated as if his salary or wage were Rs 3,500 per month.

The last amendment to both the eligibility limit and the calculation ceilings under the said Act was carried out in 2007 and was made effective from April 1, 2006.

This amendment in the Act to increase wage ceiling and bonus calculation ceiling was one of assurances given by the Centre after 10 central trade unions went on one-day strike on September 2.

The government had hinted at meeting workers’ aspirations on nine out of 12 demands submitted by the unions.

PTI

A LETTER OF NFPE ON NON-SETTLEMENT OF PENDING ISSUES

Revising Retirement age does not come under the purview of 7th Pay Commission.

Revising Retirement age does not come under the purview of 7th Pay Commission.

Recently the news about retirement age is blown out of proportion in Social Media. In Social Media it has been signaled casually that the retirement age will be brought down to 58 years. Initially it was said that 7th pay commission going to recommend the criteria for retirement age as either 33 years of Service or 60 Years of age whichever comes first.


And gradually it is reduced to 58 years of age or 33 years of service and finally ends up with 30 years of service or at the age of 55 years.

7th pay commission Vs Retirement Age

Does it worth to believe the news circulated in social media about 7th pay commission recommendation and retirement age..? We asked the Federation sources about this and they want to maintain anonymity told that it depends upon the individuals to decide whether it is true or not. We should not blame the media for everything. We should be able to know the difference between the news and rumors.

One of our Sources told that revising the retirement age will not fall under the purview of Pay commission. It should be decided by central government only. No Pay commission has recommended anything about Retirement age so far.
Federation Leaders were asked about this retirement age issue, when it became sensational in Print and e-Media, why don’t they come forward to clear the doubts on this sensational issue?. They told that they didn’t want do give importance to the rumors and hear says.

They said, “We need to clarify the doubts of our cadres across the country whenever it was rumored in social media about their service related sensational issues. But when sensational becomes routine, it’s not our business to respond to such hearsays on daily basis”

As far as retirement age is concerned we know that 7th pay commission cannot recommend revising the retirement age of central government employees, since it does not fall under the purview of 7th Pay Commission. Even we won’t accept it if the central government tries to reduce the retirement age,” the sources added.

GOVT MAY EFFECT BONUS CEILING HIKE TO RS 21,000 (BASIC + DA) A MONTH SOON

Govt may effect Bonus Ceiling hike to Rs 21,000 (basic + DA) a month soon – More Central Government Employees to be be covered for payment of Bonus 
Ministry of Labour has hinted that the ceiling of Bonus is likely to be hiked from the current ceiling of Rs.10,000 (basic + DA) per month to Rs.21,000 (basic + DA) a month. 
After the Bihar elections Union Cabinet may discuss about this ordinance to amend Payments of Bonus Act 1965 to make more employees eligible for annual bonus. 
If the Ordinance is approved, those earning up to Rs.21,000 (basic + DA) a month will now be eligible bonus. This would be a steep jump from the current ceiling of Rs.10,000 (basic + DA) per month. 

The government is already in the process of revising the minimum wages. The Election Commission has approved the Labour Ministry’s proposal and the Union Cabinet is likely to take up the issue on promulgating ordinance next week. From this year onwards, bonus will be linked to minimum wages. 

Ministry in a recent meeting with trade unions said that the government agreed to amend the Bonus Act by enhancing the eligibility ceiling under section 2(13) of the Act from Rs.10,000 per month to Rs.21,000 month. It also agreed to calculate ceiling under section 12 from Rs.3,500 per month to Rs.7,000 per month, or the minimum wage notified by the government for the category of employment. 

Trade unions View

All the trade Unions demanded the abolition on ceiling on payment of bonus due to rising inflation, the Government rejected it. Source:Deccan Herald

India Post may sell life insurance policies

  • Mahua Venkatesh and M Rajendran, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
  •   |   
  •  Oct 10, 2015 
If all goes according to plan, India Post will soon offer life insurance products as part of a broader strategy to give its millions of customers a suite of financial and savings instruments ranging from small savings, fixed deposits, insurance and mobile wallets. A specific policy for the girl child, with a maximum assured sum of Rs 10 lakh, is also on the cards.
The move is part of the postal department’s strategy to modernise its services, leveraging its network of 160,000 post offices , 45,000 postmen and 250,000 extra-departmental employees, who would be trained to serve as personnel financial advisers in remote villages.
“We are looking to revamp our life insurance business in a big way in 2016...at present, we offer our own life insurance products in a very limited manner only to postal staff and a few government officials,” Kavery Banerjee, secretary, department of post, told HT.
India Post will soon approach the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) for its approval to launch more insurance products.
At present, India Post has a total corpus of Rs 56,000 crore under its insurance segment, which offers postal life insurance (PLI) and rural postal life insurance (RPLI). “We are looking at a 500% increase in the next two to three years,” Banerjee said.
India Post has managed to sell 7 million policies under PLI while 23 million under RPLI. It is also looking at tie-ups with general insurance companies at a later stage to offer non-life products.
Besides, India Post will also start selling Atal Pension Yojana, a government-backed pension scheme, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May this year. Until August, banks have managed to induct only about 500,000 subscribers into the scheme, which mainly targets the unorganised sector.
The finance ministry, which has set a target of 20 million subscribers by December 31 this year, has also asked banks to chalk out individual strategies to expand the reach of the pension scheme.
//copy// HT

India Post - We Care... We Share... We reach everywhere

INDIA POST-BSNL TIE-UP LIKELY FOR PAYMENTS BANK

India Post is considering partnering state-run telecom major BSNL and using its mobile platform to offer payments bank services. To provide physical banking services under the payments bank, it will use its 150,000 post offices across the country.
“We will explore every platform for our payments bank venture. The discussion with BSNL is in the preliminary stages. We are looking at the feasibility of this tie-up and the prospective revenue streams,” a senior India Post official told Business Standard.
India Post has already moved a note with the Public Investment Board for an investment of Rs 300 crore on a payments bank. The board is likely to take up the matter this month, after which an approval from the Cabinet will be sought.
India Post is betting on banking to boost revenue. “We are targeting NRIs (non-resident Indians), the unorganised sector and micro, small and medium enterprises for remittances, payments and investments,” the official said.

In August this year, 11 firms, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries and Vodafone, secured an in-principle approval for a payments bank licence from the Reserve Bank of India. Payments banks won’t be allowed to carry out lending activities; initially, these can hold a balance of up to Rs 1 lakh a customer. These banks will be allowed to issue ATM or debit cards but not credit cards.

The remittances market is estimated at Rs 2 lakh crore, half of which is in the informal sector and not reflected in official numbers (remittances through India Post, mobile wallets, etc) because of lack of clarity on the definition of migrants

India Post is preparing notes to carve out a separate subsidiary for a payments bank, which will later become an umbrella firm for the bank, which it plans to start by March 2017, the official said.

Initially, the payments bank will have 650 main branches. Subsequently, 25,000 ‘spoke’ branches will be set up, while 130,000 post offices will act as business correspondents.

Post Bank of India (PBI)

The Post Bank of India (PBI) is a proposed state-owned commercial bank in India. The bank would use the existing network of the public-sector postal service, India Post.

History

In 2006, it was announced that India Post would open a bank to erase its 1,000 crore deficit during the 11th Five Year Plan, emulating Poste italiane. In February 2013, it was announced that India Post had hired Ernst and Young to prepare a report on the proposed bank. Some officials of the Ministry of Finance had opposed the plan saying that India Post did not have the expertise to provide banking services such as handling credit.
In August 2013, the Planning Commission of India said that even though it supported the plan, it was not feasible owing to financial difficulties at the moment. It also felt that converting post offices into bank branches may hamper their original function In October 2013, the Cabinet of India rejected the proposal on the grounds that India Post did not have sufficient expertise in running a bank. In December 2013, India Post announced that it would install ATMs in 1000 of its office across India in the first half of 2014.
On 27 February 2014, India Post opened its first ATM in Chennai. In April 2014, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gave in-principle banking licences to IDFC and Bandhan Financial Services out of 26 applicants, but India Post was not considered for a licence because it had not received the mandatory clearance from the government. However, the RBI said that it would examine the proposal separately in consultation with the government.
In September 2014, a task force was formed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi which aimed to study ways in which the existing postal network could be leveraged. The task force was headed by T. S. R. Subramanian.[11] On 4 December 2014, the task force submitted its report to Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad. The report said that more services should be provided in the field of banking, insurance and e-commerce.[1]

In late December 2014, it was announced that India Post would issue ATM-cum-debit cards to its Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) account holders. In January 2015, it was announced that the Indian government was considering a legislature, to finalise the setting up of the bank, following which a banking license would be applied for at the Reserve Bank of India. On 28 February 2015, during the presentation of the Budget it was announced that India Post will use its large network to run a payments bank.

Role In Financial Inclusion

India Post has about 1,54,000 post offices, of them 90% are in rural areas. There is one post office for every 7176 people in India. India Post also has 2,96,000 agents in the rural area. About 2.2 crore people, already receive their National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) payments by post offices. After State Bank of India, India Post has the largest deposits valued at 6 lakh crore.

T. S. R. Subramanian has said that it could aid in the ongoing Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana financial inclusion plan.

Structure And Funding

It has proposed by the task force that the existing Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) should be continued to run parallel to the new bank initially. Later, it should be merged with the bank. The existing post offices shall provide banking services to customer, whereas the bank branches shall handle back-office work, like processing loan applications, assessing credit worthiness and risk assessment, investment operations etc.

The Post Bank shall also provide institutional accounts to panchayats and micro-credit agencies. Initially, the bank will operate separately from the postal business, with a branch in every district for the first three years. The bank will require an initial funding of 500 crore from the government.

IGNOU offers free courses to Central Govt Employees

The central government employees keen to pursue higher studies will now be able to do so from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and that too, free of cost. IGNOU has devised a special course for them called -- Distance and E-Learning Programmes for Government Employees (DELPGE). The programme is open only to Central employees, working in ministries, departments and attached offices.

Coordinator of IGNOU study centre in Jamshedpur, Vijay Kumar ‘Piyush’ said these courses would help enhance central government employees’ performance skill. IGNOU will offer 140 courses, including - Certificate Courses, Advance Certificate, PG Certificate, Masters, Post-Graduation Diploma, Advance Diploma, Diploma and Select/specialized module.

The number of seats in each programme would, however, be limited to 50 and offered on a first-come-first-served basis, he said, adding the course would begin from January 2016.

The employees enrolled under this programme would have to pay the fees to IGNOU, which would later get reimbursed on his/her successful completion of the course. However, those failing to complete the course in the given time limit and with the minimum qualifying grades would not be eligible for any reimbursement.

Reimbursement for the Masters programme would be available to an employee only once. Each government employee would be allowed to enroll for only one programme at a time.

Source : http://www.hindustantimes.com/

Payment of D A to GDS at revised rates w.e.f. 01.07.2015 onwards - reg

The Government Is Likely To Register The Postal Bank By The End Of The Year

The government is likely to register the postal bank by the end of the year while a pilot for payment services will be launched around January 2017.


Postal Bank

According to sources, as per the timeline for setting up postal bank, approval from NITI Aayog will be secured by mid-October followed by public investment board's nod by October-end and Cabinet approval in November.

"The registration for postal bank is planned be done in December and a pilot will be launched in January 2017," said an official in the Communications and IT Ministry.

He said the bank will be an independent company with initial corpus of Rs 300 crore and the new entity will enter into revenue sharing model with the Department of Posts (DoP).

The Reserve Bank had granted in-principle approval to 11 applicants, including DoP, in August to set up payments banks.

As per RBI guidelines, payments banks would offer a limited range of products such as demand deposits and remittances. They will not be allowed to undertake lending activities and will initially be restricted to holding a maximum balance of Rs 1 lakh per individual customer.

They will be allowed to issue ATM or debit cards as also other prepaid payment instruments, but not credit cards.

Bonus Issues

The word ‘Bonus’ continues to powerfully attract the employee communities.
Given once every year, bonus or honorarium could sometimes be even bigger than the monthly salaries.

But Central Government employees are given only small amounts as bonuses each year. With the highest prescribed ceiling limit fixed at Rs.3500, the bonus is calculated based on the number of days announced.

Last year, Railway employees were given bonuses of 78 days, employees of the postal department received 60 days’ bonus. Civilian employees of the defence were given a bonus of 40 days.

Employees of the public and private sectors wrongly assume that 60 days bonus implies tow months’ salary.

In simple terms, a 30 days bonus indicates a sum of Rs.3500 approximately. 60 days bonus implies that the worker will be given Rs.7000. in case of 75 days’ bonus, the worker makes Rs.8750. The amount is equal to one-fifth the salary of the employee.

In 2007, the calculation ceiling of bonus was increased from Rs.2500 to Rs.3500pm , and the eligibility limit for bonus was raised from Rs.3500 to Rs.10,000 pm. For a number of years, all federation of Central Government employees have been demanding that the calculation ceiling limit be raised from Rs.3500. You can see its impact on all the ‘Charter of Demands‘ presented by the federations to the government.

Recently, the Government requested the trade unions to withdraw their September 2 strike notice. During the negotiations that were held between the ministers and the trade union representatives, it was reported that the Government had accepted to raise the bonus ceiling limit from Rs.3500 to Rs.7000. Sources also said that the eligibility of bonus was raised from Rs.10,000 to Rs.20,000. But, no announcements in this regard were made by the Government.

National Joint Council of Action decided to defer the Indefinite Strike from 23rd November 2015

Rate cut: Government to take a fresh look at small savings interest

The government has decided to review the small savings rates, which remain sticky at 8.4-8.5%, limiting banks' ability to lower deposit rates and slowing down the transmission of Reserve Bank of India's softer monetary policy decisions.

"It has been decided that with regard to the transmission of the rates, the government will undertake a review of the small savings rate also," economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das said."Small savings is a decision the government has taken in response to the policy rate announced by the RBI," he said.

The decision to cut small savings rates is a tricky one since no ruling party wishes to become unpopular to the vote bank they depend upon. However, lowering of the small savings rates is directly linked to the rates at which companies borrow from banks. "There is no time limit. We will do it in due course," finance minister Arun Jaitley said. RBI governor Raghuram Rajan surprised all by a 50 basis points repo rate reduction but doubts prevail on how banks across the spectrum transmit the easy policy rate into lowering of lending rates unless they manage to soften deposit rates. RBI has reduced repo rates by 125 bps since January, yet the transmission of the rate cuts into the real economy has been relatively weak.

Rajan indicated that there would be a shift in focus from policy rates to greater transmission of these rates. Banks reduced deposit rates aggressively over the last three quarters with some lowering term deposit rates by 50-75 bps but matching cuts in lending rates come with a lag. But they have time and again whined that high interest rates on small savings such as public provident fund or post office monthly income schemes are stopping them from lowering deposit rates beyond a point and this inability prevents them from making loans cheaper.

Senior citizens get 9.3% from post offices, 100-130 bps higher than what they get from most state-run banks. "A major part of small savings comes from the risk averse segments and for them it is the means of subsistence. It (lowering small savings rate) is easier said than done," said India Ratings managing director Ananda Bhowmik. "So, the transmission of policy rate will continue to be an issue. Historically, monetary transmission remains limited to 25-40% of policy rate cuts. It may increase a bit but not beyond 50% due to the structural bottlenecks," he said. The country's largest bank, State Bank of India, cut deposit rates by 25 bps across maturities effective from October 5.

Its medium-term deposit rate is 7.75% at present while small savers enjoy 8.4% rate for deposits below five years from post offices and for the popular monthly income scheme. Public provident fund offers 8.7% rate a year.

Source : The Economic Times

Mysuru postal division in Karnataka gets integrated system for services


Customers will get delivery status of their posts or parcels on their mobile phones or can track status online.— PHOTO: M.A. SRIRAM

CUSTOMERS CAN AVAIL THEMSELVES OF ANY SERVICE FROM ANY COUNTER

Mysuru is all set to become the first postal division in the country to adopt a common system for various postal services, integrating all software solutions introduced under a core banking network.

From Thursday, customers need not wait at a particular counter for a particular service, as every counter will be able to provide all the services available at the post office.

A team of professionals from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Wednesday took up the task of integrating the solutions into a common system. Postal services across the division, covering 65 post offices and 202 branches, remained suspended to facilitate the work.

The team, with the support from the Department of Posts, spent over six months to accomplish the task.

Shivaiah, Senior Superintendent of Post Offices, Mysuru division told The Hindu that Mysuru was selected for the pilot project considering previous ‘models’ successfully introduced here, for improving customer service.

“The integration work is underway and the common system will be ready for operations from Thursday. With this, Mysuru division will become the first postal division in the country to introduce this improved service,” he said.

Barring Nanjangud and T. Narsipur (which are part of Chamarajnagar postal division), the remaining taluks in the district – Mysuru city, Mysuru taluk, K R Nagar, H D Kote, Periyapatna, and Hunsur – come under Mysuru division.

Mr. Shivaiah said software had been developed for various services such as postal life insurance, postal savings account, recurring deposits and so on. Recently, core banking system had been introduced for the convenience of customers.

The officer said customers sometimes had to wait for their turn to avail services at a particular counter even though the next counter was free. However, with the integration of various software solutions and bringing them under a unified system, customers can avail any postal service from any counter, he explained.

Importantly, customers will get delivery status of their posts or parcels on their mobile phones or can track status online. All data will be stored at the central server in Mumbai.

After the integration of software solutions, the company professionals would provide post-implementation service, assisting the employees to trouble shoot any problem, Mr. Shivaiah added.

Mysuru division can become a model for other postal divisions across the country for replicating the common customer service system in the coming months.

Mysuru division will become the first postal division in the country to introduce this improved service.

com.CH.Veera Raghavulu, PA,Kothapet S.O. has passed away

com.CH.Veera Raghavulu, PA,Kothapet S.O. has passed away suddenly due to heart attack on 02/10/2015. NFPE Guntur Extends Its condolences to His Family...

BONUS CEILING WILL BE INCREASED SOON

As per reliable sources, Election Commission has given it's nod for issuing ordinance on "Payment of Bonus Act"

Now the matter will go to cabinet and after it's approval, necessary ordinance will be notified soon.
Earlier Govt. decided to raise the ceiling of Rs 3500/- per month to Rs 7,000/- per month.

DOP SEEK CABINET NOD TO SET UP PAYMENTS BANK

The Department of Posts (DoP) is expected to seek Cabinet nod within two months for raising Rs.292 crore from public investment board to set-up Payments Bank, for which it has already got the RBI approval.
“We expect the fund to be cleared in two months,” an official source told PTI.
Payments bank licence will allow companies to collect deposits (initially up to Rs.1 lakh per individual), offer Internet banking, facilitate money transfers and sell insurance and mutual funds.
Besides, they can issue ATM or debit cards, but not credit cards. The Department expects revenue of over Rs.550 crore from PBI in first 5 years. The postal department had earlier tried for Rs.632 crore fund approval from government for full fledged banking services but it was not cleared by PIB.

Government has in-principle agreed to the entry of Postal Department in banking service through payments bank route. 
“The DoP expects to roll out Payment Bank services by March 2017. There are no major infrastructure issue with the department. Only there is need to set up a data centre and disaster recovery centre which will be done soon,” the official said.

Consultants

The Postal department computerised about 25,000 of its departmental post offices but rural post offices will be provided handheld devices for digitalising records.

The Department is in final stages of appointing a consultant that will guide it in setting up payment banks.

The Payments Bank entity is proposed to have its own employees and IT infrastructure. — PTI
The DoP expects to roll out Payment Bank services by March 2017. There are no major infrastructure issue with the department

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