CONGRATULATION!! EXPENDITURE CLEARED CADRE RESTRUCTURING FILE

Comrades,

                  Cadre restructuring file is through from expenditure and went to D.O.P&T last evening. We would like to congratulate all the Associations who participated in the 20th April Lunch hour Demonstration and especially comrades of odisha circle without whose effort this co-ordination committee would not have formed, this co-ordination committees fasting at Jantar Mantar on 6th may 2011 for which Secretary General & President  Of Superintendent Association was the chief architect made this possible, certainly we should not forget the unprecedented effort shown by our Chairman C.B.E.C. CR file of CBDT is also pending at DOPT and we expect that these two files shall move together to MOS's office within a short while from now. looking forward for a stronger co-ordination between Superintendent and Inspectors in future.

DEVELOPMENT IN MUMBAI AICEIA

In yet another successful step taken by The AICEIA leadership an ad-hoc committee was  elected from amongst the inspectors of Mumbai named as AICEIA, Mumbai Branch. The team AICEIA initially called Mumbai Chief Commissioner to have a formal date for discussion on draft Transfer –posting policy , as discussed the date of the meeting was 18^th May, 2011.  It took nearly 1hr. and 45 minutes to interact with the Zonal Chief Commissioner. At the time of discussion it was made known to him that a committee is likely to be constituted by 20^th May, 2011.

          Right after initial recognition of AICEIA in December, 2007 there was no formal committee of AICEIA in Mumbai, The then all India President ran the Association , in an incident when the President of Mumbai branch of AICEIA asked the detailed accounts of lakhs of rupees extracted from the Mumbai branch Bank account by the self proclaimed Secretary of Mumbai the President was suspended in no time. From then on there was no president of Mumbai Branch. So, it can be understood that Mumbai Branch is defunct for a considerable period of time.

There is numerous incidents and proofs which put in the picture about non-functioning organization and dictatorship of a few in the defunct Mumbai Inspectors’ Association from long back, at the time of the visit of the Secretary General in November 2009 it was understood that there is good and intelligent people in Mumbai who wants to come and serve the cadre from the front but owing to some unknown threat intimidating Inspectors with dire consequences so that either they remain inactive or they hate to do Association in future. 
Though full election procedure observed at the time of  electing new Body in Daman in the year 2008, yet, these self proclaimed leaders demanded that there was no election!!!???… This is a confusing fact. As Sri K.P. Rao himself took out big meetings in the Daman for the two following nights of the Convention in December 2009 at Daman, and apprehending humiliating defeat had not filed any nomination and demanded for natural selection in the post of Secretary General as he claimed to be the most effective and influential person among the C.Ex. Inspectors.

         Mr. K.P. Rao applied for recognition in the year 2009 March and as par the provision laid down in the constitution of AICEIA the Ex. President of AICEIA and Ex General Secretary Mumbai Circle Sri Koneru Prabhakar Rao’s membership stands cancelled from the very date of filing for recognition of a separate organization. As declared to Board Mumbai Branch is having 1188 membership in the name of AICEIA.  Neither the subscription collected in the name of AICEIA had been handed over to the Secretary General AICEIA nor it has been intimated to general members of Mumbai at any point of time. This is a true swindle and no audited account is ready for the expenditure incurred.     

             However, with keenness of the Inspectors of Mumbai Branch we have created an ad-hoc committee as placed under:

           All India Central Excise Inspector’s Association, Mumbai Branch’s meeting was conducted on 20-05-2011 at CGO Building, CBD Belapur and following committee has been constituted in the presence of common members and federation representatives. 

S.NO..	NAME(Shri/Smt)	POST
1	GANESH MAOHLKAR		PRESIDENT
2	SHRI P.K.SINGH		VICE PRESIDENT
3	S.VENKATA  SUBRAMANIAM		GENERAL SECRETARY
4	ANJAN CHANDA		JOINT SECRETARY
5	D.S.ACHREKAR		TREASURER
6	L.D.MHATRE		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-MUMBAI-II
7	T.H.HARIHARAN		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-MUMBAI-V
8	JAYWANT SHETYE		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-M&P WING
9	SHILESH PURAWAT		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-MUMBAI-III
10	UJWALA NAIR		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-BELAPUR
11	D.B.SONAWANE		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-BELAPUR
12	H.I.GANGARAMANI		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-S.TAX
13	N.S.MANE		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-MUMBAI-I
14	KRISHNA KUMAR		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER - RAIGAD
15	MILIND BOGALE		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-MUMBAI-V
16	ACHRA		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER-THANE-I
17	ALOK PRABHAKAR		EX.COMMITTEE MEMBER, LTU

This Committee was constituted on an ad-hoc basis, the authorized office bearers of this committee shall conduct general election amongst the members of the Association immediately after the All India Convention is over.

       The above members are authorized to interact with administration in matters related to Inspectors of Mumbai Central Excise.

         Hence representatives from the above committee shall be eligible to attend XVIth convention subject to the provisions of the constitution of AICEIA.

         

Meeting in MUMBAI

Comrade,

            All The Inspectors of Mumbai I & mumbai II zone are hereby requested to come and join a General body meeting at Belapur on 20th May 2011 sharp at 12.00 noon. The meeting wll be addressed by Kousik Roy Secretary General

                                                                          Comradely yours

                                                                             Kousik Roy

latest developments

The daylong dharna –anshan programme of the Joint Co-ordination Committee was a resounding success, with Inspectors and Superintendents from all across the country gathering at Jantar Mantar today in large numbers. Inspiring addresses by the national office –bearers of both Associations amidst  spirited slogan-shouting marked the beginning of the programme. As the day progressed, the number of participants swelled, with fresh batches arriving from far and near, by road, rail and air. Repeatedly the demands of these two most stagnating and suffering cadres in the CBEC were raised by loud slogans and speeches, and the enthusiasm had to be seen and heard to be believed.

 Media persons of the local and national newspapers/news-agencies/tv newschannels visited the protest site at regular intervals  to cover our programme, and it is expected that it will be widely reported.

On the invitation of the Chairman, CBEC, conveyed through a high-ranking Board official, a delegation of office bearers of both Associations participated in a meeting at North Block at 1.00 pm.

Besides the Chairman,  three other senior officers  of the Board including the JS(Admin.) were present in the meeting.

After welcoming the Association representatives, the Chairman assured that the Board was seized of all issues that were being faced by our two cadres, and they were working to adequately address all problems at the earliest. A significant and welcome development in this direction was that the CBEC has now sent the Cadre Re-structuring Proposal again to the  Deptt. of Expenditure after preparing a well-reasoned and argued reply  on all the observations made by them. The revised proposals submitted by the Board remain, by and large, unchanged. Following that  the Chairman himself met the Secretary(Expenditure), who is  also the Secretary (Finance) on 4^th May 2011. The JS(Admin.), Deptt. of Expenditure was also present then, and according to our Chairman, his impression is that Expenditure now appears convinced with the reasons advanced by the Board to justify the proposed steep increase in the number of entry level Gr ‘A’ posts and the substantial expansion of the organisational  set-up, and that he expects that they will see to it that the proposals get past Expenditure by this month-end.

On the matter of in-situ proposals for promotions of Gr ‘B’ officers, the Chairman informed that the Committee set up within the Board has finalised its recommendations, and very soon, the same will be sent to the DoP&T for approval. JS(Admin) informed that all aspects were being minutely examined and and the proposals are being formulated keeping in mind any objections that could crop up at the later stages of approval required from other Ministries.

We demanded that topmost priority be accorded to our concerns of speedy implementation of the in-situ scheme incorporating our suggestions that it should be a continuing scheme, and that there should be no residency period restriction for advancing benefits under the scheme, since the proposed promotions are non-functional, in any case. The Chairman assured us that this would be considered.

The other major issue discussed was the parity with Customs issue. The Associations took strong exception to the unwarranted delay being made to file the required affidavit in the Supreme Court on the ratio  issue. We also raised the issue of delay in lifting the ban on ICT. The Chairman appreciated the Assn’s concerns and assured that he will discuss the issue in the next meeting of the full Board, besides instructing the JS(Admin)  to get the affidavit filed expeditiously, though Joint Secretary ( Admn.) put forward some argument in this regard yet chairman expressed his deep concern to reconsider the issue.

The Chairman also acceded to our request to fix a meeting with the Assn for discussing threadbare all outstanding issues at length towards the end of this month.

In view of these positive developments, at the end of today’s dharna at 5.00 p.m it was decided  by both the Assns to defer the call for mass Casual Leave on 27.05.2011, and to review the position after the next meeting with the Chairman. The agitation, however has not been withdrawn, and will be revived on the very first indications that our demands are not getting deserving attention. The two Associations expressed their willingness to conglomerate with other recognised cadre Associations of Gr.'C' & Gr.'D' for the proposed Parliament Rally in the 'Badal Session' of the Parliament.

latest communication with CBEC

Ref. No. AICIEA/CBEC/91/2011                                                                                      01.05.2011

To

        Sri S.Dutt Majumder,

        Chairman, Central Board of Excise & Customs,

        Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance,

        North Block, New Delhi.

Sir,

                       Sub: Notice for agitation

         Kindly refer to our letter under ref. no. AICIEA/CBEC/83/2011 Dated: 06.04.2011wherein we have mentioned that:

       In response to the call given by the Co-ordination committee of Central Excise Group ‘B’ Executive Officers (Superintendent’s & Inspectors’)   Ref No. Co-ord./CBEC /org/ 01/11  Dated  06.04.2011 Inspectors who are member of our Association shall participate in the organisation action programme commencing from 20^th April 2011.

        As par the Call given by the Co-ordination committee of Central Excise Group ‘B’ Executive Officers (Superintendent’s & Inspectors’) lunch hour dharna programme held in front of every Chief Commissioner’s office through out the country on 20^th April, 2011 with huge participation. We are constrained to state that despite the receipt of our agitation programme Board has not yet taken any cogent step to resolve the pending issues. In this circumstances we are left with no alternative but to go for next phase of agitation programme .

         Hence, As per decision of the CEC meeting of the All India Central Excise Inspectors’ Association held in New Delhi on 5^th February 2011 and the meeting of the  Co-ordination committee of Central Excise Group ‘B’ Executive Officers (Superintendent’s & Inspectors’) held in New Delhi on 5^th of April 2011 Inspectors of Central Excise shall be observing one day fasting in front of Jantar Mantar, New Delhi along with Superintendents of Central excise on 6^th may 2011 on the following agenda :

CHARTER OF DEMAND

1.      Posts of Assistant Commissioners arising out of cadre re-structuring should be filled up on the basis of stagnation in relaxation of the provisions of recruitment rule to ensure parity among the three feeder cadres of Superintendent of Central Excise, Superintendent of Customs and Appraisers.

2.     Parity in promotion among different seniority zone in Central Excise Group B Executive cadre and between Group B Executive cadres in Customs must be ensured.

3.     An Appraiser/Superintendent of Customs promotee junior to a Superintendent of Central Excise should not be posted as his/her Assistant Commissioner.

4.     The in-situ promotion scheme should be finalized expeditiously in consultation with the recognized associations of the stake holders.

5.     Fixation of pay of Inspectors/Superintendents in the pre-revised scale of 6500-10500/7500-12000 should be provided with effect from 01.01.1986.

6.     Inter Commissionerate transfer on all compassionate grounds should be made available in terms of the Board’s circular dated 20.05.1980.

7.     The pay of the cadre of Superintendents should be upgraded to Grade Pay of Rs. 5400/- in Pay Band II on par with analogous cadres.

8.      Minuted meetings/JCM s should be conducted at the Board level and at local level with the recognized association of Inspectors/Superintendents at regular intervals.

9.     The 1% incentive on incremental revenue should be utilized for providing facilities and infrastructure for all staffs.

Programme of Action :

a.     Whole day Hunger Dharna in front of Jantar Mantar on 6^th May, 2011.

b.     One day mass casual leave on 27^th May, 2011.

The Inspectors of Central Excise are highly aggrieved with the ever alarming stagnation got no solution yet and repeated persuasion on the matter yielded no result.

                                           Yours faithfully

                                           (Kousik Roy)

The new pension scheme introduced by the Union Government for Central Govt. employees has been challenged in the Madras Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal.

The new pension scheme introduced by the Union Government for Central Government  employees has been challenged in the Madras Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal by the railway employees.

An employee of the southern railway and Dakshin Railway Employees Union (DREU) have challenged the scheme terming it unconstitutional and invalid.

According to the new scheme, employees appointed on or after 01.01.2004 in the Railways would be governed by the new pension scheme which would be governed by 'Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority' which would function under the overall control of Ministry of Finance. According to the new scheme, 10% of Pay and DA of an employee would be deducted and an equal amount would be contributed by the central government.  

The entire pension scheme is being authorized through various executive orders, which cannot be done to govern the retirement benefits of government employees which has to be in tune with Articles 41 to 43 of the Constitution, alleges the application. The notifications issued by the government constituting PFRDA dated 10.10.2003 and 14.11.2008 are unconstitutional, as they have not been issued by the President of India and authenticated as required under Article 77 of the Constitution and the ordnance sanctioning this also lapsed in 2005, which renders the entire process without authority of law alleges DREU in its application.

The new pension scheme, which is mandatory to government employees curtails them from exercising any option said V. Daniel, a Helper in Southern Railway. According to the New Pension Scheme, any citizen of India can join the Scheme and they can choose their Fund Managers or opt for different schemes whereas no such option is available to government servants.

The application also raised serious apprehension over the way in which their funds are being exposed to market risk and they cite the risk clause in the offer document of the NPS which says that "there are no guarantee on investments and investments involve risks such as trading volumes, settlement risk, liquidity risk, default risk, including possible loss of principal'. The application also cited the statement of PFRDA Chairman that pension fund managers regulated by PFRDA are not giving minimum guarantee on returns in their products. 

Besides seeking quashing of the notification and grant retiral benefits to all employees on par with those who joined prior to January 1994, the application sought an interim injunction against the notification and also to release family pension and gratuity to certain employees who died after the introduction of the new scheme.

The matter came up before the Madras Bench of the CAT comprising Members K. Elango and R. Satapathy. Counsel R. Vaigai advanced arguments on behalf of the DREU and highlighted how the funds of the employees are being entrusted with private players and are subjected to undue risks. She also apprised the Bench that the government as an employer cannot transfer its funds to a private player and expect him to discharge government's obligation.  

After hearing the arguments on behalf of the applicant and of the central government, the Bench ordered interim relief directing the railway authorities to offer gratuity and family pension to all employees who joined after January 2004 within four weeks from the date of application and posted the matter for June 1.

source: Lawetalnews.com

NOTICE FOR XVIth CONVENTION