Saturday, December 31, 2022

LETTER TO CPMG BIHAR CIRCLE REGARDING NON GRANT OF MACPs & Promotions to SBCO Officials:

AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/Non grant of MACPs & Promotions to SBCO officials/2022        Dt:  26.09.2022

To

The Chief Postmaster General,

Bihar Circle,

Patna-800001.

Subject:-Regarding Non grant of MACPs & Promotions due to  the unavailability of APARs to SBCO

                officials in Bihar Circle…

Reference:-Letter No. AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/Non grant of MACPs & Promotions to SBCO 

                    officials/2022  dated 28.01.2022. 

                   On behalf of AIPSBCOEA CHQ, it is brought to the kind notice of the Honorable Chief Postmaster General regarding unavailability of APARs of SBCO officials throughout the Circle. It is learnt that the APARs which are to be written by the Divisional Heads for the SBCO officials every Financial year are not written for years together. Almost many of the SBCO officials face this problem as the Divisional Heads do not write their APARs (or) are unaware that they are the competent authority to write the APARs of SBCO officials when requested for by the concerned officials. The Regional Offices are also not following the correct procedure i.e. asking for the list/CRs of the SBCO officials due for their MACP financial upgradations and the LSG/HSG II/HSG II Promotions periodically in a year and instructing the Divisions to Convene DPCs to approve the minutes of the DPCs.

 Due to the unavailability of APARs of the SBCO officials which are to be written by the Divisional Heads especially for the years from 2004 to 2009 and non-adherence of the correct procedure at Regional Offices to make the Divisions update the APARs. Many of the SBCO officials have not yet received their MACP Financial upgradations. This has led to heavy Financial loss to many of the SBCO officials throughout the Circle in all the three Regions.

               Hence, it is requested that the respected Chief Postmaster General may look into this issue personally and issue orders to all the Regions to instruct all the Divisional Heads to follow proper procedure in writing the APARs of SBCO officials every year (for the left out years) as a one- time measure  to grant Promotions to the SBCO officials under the MACP I, II & III financial upgradations, as these are the only Promotional Avenues granting monetary benefits to the SBCO officials.The writing of APARs of the SBCO officials (for the left out years) and stream lining the process or giving a certificate of satisfactory service as mentioned in the Circle office letter dated 26.07.2021 issued for the 3rd Financial upgradation only will settle the delay in MACP upgradations for years together.

 A line of reply is solicited please.

 With Regards,

 -Sd-

SHP. JASMINE JALAL BEGAM

General Secretary

AIPSBCOEA.

 

LETTER TO CPMG BIHAR CIRCLE REGARDING GRANT OF IMMUNITY  FROM TRANSFER TO CIRCLE TREASURER:

AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/Non grant of Immunity from transfer to Circle Treasurer/2022     Dt:  26.09.2022

 To

The Chief Postmaster General,

Bihar Circle,

Patna-800001.

Subject:-Regarding Non grant of immunity from transfer to Circle Treasurer –Bihar circle…

 Reference:- Directorate letter Nos.69-18/70-SPB-I Dt. 07.12.1970 and 69-52/72-SPB-I Dt.

                    23.03.1973 and 02.01.1974.&No. X-12/1/2019-SPB-II Dt. 03rd June 2020.

                   On behalf of AIPSBCOEA CHQ, it is brought to the kind notice of the respected Chief Postmaster General regarding  non grant of immunity from transfer to the Circle Treasurer Sri. Shekar Suman, PA SBCO, Munger HO who was elected unanimously as the Circle Treasurer in the 5th Biennial Circle Conference held on 04.04.2021. It is requested to post the Circle Treasurer at the Circle Head Quarters Bihar for performing the activities of the Association and coordinating with all the members and higher ups without facing any difficulties.

                  The activities and functioning of the Association is very much affected due to non- availability of the Circle Treasurer at the Circle Headquarters.  Hence , the respected Chief Postmaster General may kindly look into the matter immediately and issue favourable orders to transfer the Circle Treasurer of AIPSBCOEA to the Circle Headquarters under immunity grounds which is the need of the hour for the smooth functioning of the Association.

 A line of reply is solicited please.

 With Regards,

 -Sd-

SHP. JASMINE JALAL BEGAM

General Secretary

AIPSBCOEA.

 

                                          RESOLUTIONS OF CWC AT BIHAR

Ref. No: AIPSBCOEA/Resolutions of All India CWC Meeting/2022                     Dt-27.09.2022   

To

The Secretary General,

NFPE, 1st Floor,

North Avenue Post Office Building,

New Delhi- 110 001.

Sub:  Resolutions of the Central Working Committee Meeting held on 25.09.2022 & 26.09.2022 at   

         Patna – Bihar…

            The following Resolutions were passed unanimously in the Central Working Committee Meeting of All India Postal SBCO Employees Association held on 25.09.22 and 26.09.22 at Hotel City Centre, station road Patna-Bihar.

 1.                  Cadre Restructuring of SBCO:

 On behalf of our All India Postal SBCO Employees Association, letters have been written for implementing the Cadre Restructuring for SBCO vide letter numbers:

Ref. No: AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/Cadre restructure& Nomenclature change of SBCO/ Dated- 28.08.2019,25.11.2019, 02.12.2019, 18.5.2020, 09.07.2020, 13.07.2020, 30.09.2020 and 29.01.2021 ,30.08.2021 & 04.07.2022.

 In the periodical meeting held during 18.11.2021, it was replied that the report/recommendations of the Committee headed by Sri. Charles Lobo was received and the final report of the Cadre restructuring proposal will be sent to Department of Expenditure within 15 days.

It is very painfully registered here that in spite of several letters from the AIPSBCOEA CHQ, the Cadre restructuring of SBCO is not yet done. Due to this inordinate delay, all the SBCO officials are facing great monetary loss because of unavailability of selection grade posts in the wanting places for accepting the same (or) because only very few posts are available altogether. On behalf of AIPSBCOEA CHQ, it is requested that Cadre Restructuring may please be done immediately without any further delay as already its more than two years have passed since the first meeting of the proposal and more than 5 years since done for the General line PAs.

 The SBCO officials recruited for the same year at par with the General line PAs have not yet received their LSG promotions and therefore their MACPs are not being awarded. But the General line PAs have received their LSG promotions due to Cadre restructuring and not waiting for their HSG II promotions. This situation of SBCO officials though being recruited in the same year unlike the General line officials are very much behind in their career uplift (LSG PROMOTIONS) and facing monetary loss due to non grant of Cadre restructuring to SBCO.

 Hence it is requested to implement Cadre restructuring to SBCO immediately before deciding any other future changes in respect of SBCO Cadre.

 2.      Request to stop irregular recovery imposed on SBCO staff in the name of contributory negligence for petty irregularities:

Letter No. Ref.AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/To Stop irregular recovery on SBCO staff/2021  Dt: 27.09.2021 has already been sent in this regard.

 On behalf of AIPSBCOEA, it is painfully brought to the kind notice of the Honorable Secretary Post about the irregular recovery of many Lakhs of Rupees imposed on the SBCO staff in the name of Contributory negligence for petty irregularities which is recently becoming a burning issue in SBCO cadre as if it is a punishment for serving in the Department of Post after being very much qualified with so many professional/master degrees and dreams about their future career ; for the intentional misappropriation of some other delinquent officials who cause the pecuniary loss to the Government.

Contributory Negligence /Irregular recovery imposed on SBCO staff:-

 Duties of SBCO staff are well defined in Manual for SB Control, Pairing and ICO Procedures. Accordingly the SBCO staff are exercising the decentralized Audit and Accounts duties and their work actually start after accounting of the transactions. Therefore penalizing the SBCO employees by imposing the recovery of loss irrationally for frauds committed in the Saving Schemes in sub-offices and branch offices is contrary to the statutory rules. The SBCO staff are not related to any type of monetary transactions and accordingly they should not be identified as sub-offender/co-offender in misappropriation cases. It is clearly laid down that under Rule 11 (iii) CCS (CCA) Rules 1965, the penalty of recovery can be imposed on a Government servant only when it is established that a Govt. Servant is directly responsible for the act of negligence and breach of orders causing the financial loss and accordingly the SBCO staff should not be held responsible for any type of recovery in misappropriation cases as they did not contribute either directly or indirectly to the fraud and SBCO staff may be exempted from contributory negligence as they are not involved directly in monetary transactions.

Therefore, the implication of this OM is to recover the entire loss from the delinquent official but the recovery may be spread over till entire loss is discovered.

 The entire loss caused to the Government is to be recovered from the Delinquent official only. The meaning of “Delinquent” is one who is proved to be the “accused” or the “criminal” who has committed the theft himself to cause the misappropriation. So, the recovery of amount should be levied on him, if he doesn’t have liquid cash then his properties can be seized/attached by court to bear the loss. Anyhow, he will be possessing the fraudulent amount in his name/family members/in the form of assets. So, amount should be recovered only from the delinquent official through any one source as mentioned above and very serious cases to be filed against him to put behind the bars.

     But usually, the Administration is recovering the amount misappropriated from the other innocent officials who come into the scene only after the delinquent official has defrauded the amount intentionally by himself. The relevant vouchers/consolidations are sent to the Accounting office only on the next day of the transaction where it is handed over to the SBCO branch. The officials of SBCO have not seen the depositor, or collected money from him, or tallied the cash across the counter for the particular day of transaction on which the fraud happened. Only with the available documents received, voucher checking is done for the H.O and all the S.Os under it by hardly 2-3 SBCO officials on the next day. Now, each and every transaction has to be checked through the vouchers received at SBCO 100% for all the offices including H.O and the S.Os under it for that particular date. Practically speaking, almost all the SBCO units throughout the country are filled up by 1/3rd of the total sanctioned strength only. Also, even if the SBCO officials have checked the relevant vouchers for all the criteria as per the SB orders and procedures, the occurrence of fraud cannot be prevented as already the fraud had taken place on the previous day itself. Moreover the fraudulent person usually do not commit any omission in the vouchers mishandled by him to do the fraud. In this situation it is very shocking that how the administration wants to put the innocent SBCO officials into trap for recovering the amount which was defrauded by a criminal intentionally, without recovering the amount directly from the accused who has done the misappropriation.

This is nothing but, indirectly supporting the criminal who has misappropriated the amount and caused the pecuniary loss to the Government. This is a way of encouraging frauds and patronizing the criminals who misappropriate amounts in crores in this technical/technological scenario. So, a mentality has developed among such black sheep who have a crooked mind of indulging in frauds that the amount he will swindle will be collected from some other innocent officials and not from him fully. So, the amount he has not repaid to the Department will be a profit for such a person. Automatically, in this business minded world, such criminals will continue to do the frauds unless and until very strict methods are not adopted to collect the full amount from the concerned person who has misappropriated the amount intentionally and very serious cases to be filed against him to put him behind the bars.

                 As mentioned above the innocent SBCO employees who is in no way connected in the frauds are made scape goats for only working for the Department and Auditing the POSB transactions sincerely amidst the technical issues, staff shortage and all the draw backs of the software which is not in a way that each and every fraud can be detected by them. Every possibility/loop hole is there for a fraudulent person to commit frauds in the CBS/GL integrated scenario whatever it is. It is relevant to mention some observations from the legal forums in connection with imposition of penalty of recovery of loss by way of contributory negligence.

D.O. No. INV-17/18/2021-INV-DOP Dated 29.11.2021 issued by the Director General is not being followed and in each and every fraud case the innocent SBCO officials are being trapped and imposed penalty of recovery in the name of contributory negligence which has to be stopped immediately.

 3.      Future of SBCO:

 Before taking any decision about the future of SBCO, a meeting should be arranged with the All India Postal SBCO Employees Association.

All the suggestions given in the letters AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/Proposal  for the future of SBCO/2022  Dated:06.01.2022 and AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/Proposal of unification/merger of PA/SBCO with PA (PO)/2022 Dt: 17.05.2022 to be considered with utmost care as SBCO is a very important wing of audit unlike the other cadres in DOP.

 4.      Filling up of vacancies in SBCO:

Acute staff shortage in SBCO Cadre throughout the country:

            As mentioned in all the previous letters sent from the AIPSBCOEA CHQ, Letter No.AIPSBCOEA/CHQ/Filling up of vacancies at SBCO/2021 dated: 24.3.2021, SBCO is facing acute staff shortage throughout the country in all the circles. Except very few City units almost all SBCO units are functioning with 1/3rd sanctioned strength and even single handed in many units. Moreover there are no regular Supervisors posted in 80% of SBCO units, in many units a single official is compelled to perform the duties of both Supervisor and PA. Many of the senior officials have retired from service whose vacancies are lying unfilled. In this staff shortage scenario performing 100% checking in addition to the newly added works of NSC & KVP, and the additional works as per the SB Order 4/2021 is practically not possible. This will only lead to pendency of works at SBCO. If Administration wants SBCO to perform all the works effectively as mentioned in the SB Order 4/2021 dated 08.03.2021, the staff strength position should be completely concentrated and filled up to the sanctioned strength and even review the establishment according to the additional works added to increase the sanctioned strength of all the SBCO units.

 A special drive may be conducted by the department to fill up all the vacancies as an one time measure in SBCO giving top priority vide the Departmental exams viz PAs promoted from MTS  may be posted at SBCO. Regarding suggestions to fill up all vacant posts in SBCO, “ In respect of PA Assistance to all the SBCO units, vide Point No. 14 of SB Order No. 5/2016 dated 21.06.2016, already there is direction that Divisional Heads shall provide necessary help from Post Office staff to SBCO wherever there is shortage of staff. Hence, directions may kindly be given to all the Circles to follow the SB Order 14/2015 & SB Order 5/2016 dated 21.06.2016 for providing PA Assistance to all the needy SBCO units.

 

CIRCLES

PA

San    Work  

LSG

San  Work

HSG II

San Work

HSG I

San Work

KERALA

92

62

19

16

1

1

1

0

KARNATAKA

165

139 

 15

ASSAM

86

61

9

4

2

0

1

0

MADHYA PRADESH

158

75

11

7

2

1

2

0

BIHAR

160

131

18

4

7

1

10

0

JHARKHAND

70

54

8

3

3

2

3

1

MAHARASTRA

514

213

16

2

31

1

35

0

RAJASTHAN

163

81

8

3

4

0

2

0

ODISSA

121

41

17

10

4

2

5

3

TAMILNADU

369

235

43

23

18

0

5

0

WEST BENGAL

 

 

27

10

9

0

10

0

GUJARAT (as on 31.1.2021)

147

77

19

9

4

2

3

0

AP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HARYANA

74

53

9

5

5

4

5

0

UP

484

355

49

22

14

0

35

0

Telangana

68

47

3

2

1

0

0

0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.      One time relaxation in RRs of  HSG I & HSG II for SBCO:

 

                Our Association would like to bring to the kind notice of the honorable                                Chief Postmaster General, that in SBCO there are so many HSG I and HSG II posts  lying vacant due to  very few eligible officials in the feeder cadre of LSG posts. This creates a lot of problems in almost all units wherever the HSG I and HSG II posts are vacant as the junior officials who have just entered the Department are forced to look after the duties of the Supervisory (HSG I & HSG II) Posts and are overburdened. Hence our Association requests that one time relaxation in RRs of HSG I and HSG II Posts may be given for SBCO officials so that the eligible officials in LSG posts may be accommodated in the vacant HSG I and HSG II posts. Also the PA/SBCO will have promotional chances to LSG as a result of this.

The LSG/HSG II/ HSG I posts are very limited in SBCO and are lying vacant for years together. One time relaxation in RRs of HSG II & HSG I Posts may be given to fill up all the Supervisory posts lying vacant at SBCO by relaxing the Recruitment Rules, for which letter has already been written by AIPSBCOEA dated 20.1.2020 & 18.5.2020.

 6.                  Revised time factor:

The revised time factor is to be framed for the new works assigned vide the SB Order 4/2021 dated 8.3.2021, SB Order 3/2022 dated 18.02.2022 and the orders issued thereafter. The adhoc norms time factor issued vide the Directorate’s letter No. 25-11/2019-PE-I/WS(PE-I Section) dated 24th May 2019 does not include the new works assigned. Hence revised time factor is to be framed including the works of Deleted, Unverified transactions, manual corrections and office accounts to review the establishment of all SBCO units.

7.                  Arrangements in the Supervisory vacancies of the HSG I & II Supervisory posts in SBCO:

 (i)                 The regular service eligibility for promotion of LSG officials  to HSG II posts and HSG II officials to HSG I posts may be relaxed based on their MACPs and Grade pays of Rs. 4200/- and Rs. 4600/- respectively to fill all the vacant Supervisory posts as an one time measure, as there are no eligible officials in HSG II & HSG I posts except very few throughout the country as of now. Also, there will be no expenditure to the department as the officials would have already  received the MACP Grade pay of Rs. 4200/- for arrangements in the HSG II posts and Rs. 4600/- Grade pay for arrangements in the HSG I posts. Moreover this arrangement is purely temporary till the posts are filled on regular basis by the eligible officials. So, the officials cannot claim seniority too.

 (ii)               Also in the Control Procedure laid down for dealing the staff matters of SBCO- Dureja Part –IV(Copy enclosed) Appendix 13- Miscellaneous staff matters relating to SBCO, Pairing and Internal Check Organization; under Rule 8 pertaining to Officiating Promotions in the grade of Head Clerks (Supervisors) in SBCOs/Pairing Units , the Procedure for filling up of the vacancies for a period from less than a month to more than 4 months are clearly mentioned. These vacancies are to be considered regular vacancies and filled on circle basis, by approved, senior most of the approved officials or failing that by suitable senior most UDCs.

 This Control Procedure laid down for SBCO is still the same and no changes have been done till date. Hence, as far as SBCO is concerned the unfilled Higher selection grade supervisory posts can be filled vide the suggestion of the Association mentioned in (i) or as per the Appendix 13 of the control procedure mentioned in (ii).

 This will enable many SBCO officials to accept their LSG promotions without declining which will be beneficial to them as well as to the concerned units of SBCO where the higher selection grade supervisory posts are lying vacant for years together.

 8.      Restoration of powers for recording APARs of SBCO staff to AO ICO (SB) in place of Divisional Heads:

SBCO functions are devised for checking, auditing and accounting according to the prescribed procedures. PAs (SBCO)  belong to circle cadre and their Appointing Authority is Director of Postal Services. The progress of the work performed by the officials of SBCO is virtually reviewed by AO ICO(SB) acquire knowledge about the staff and their performance. Since the SBCO is an audit section, it has to bring out the deficiencies and discrepancies of the SB Branch by raising objections and reports. This action is not relished by the Divisional Administration and the SBCO Branch is being considered as nuisance by them. As such, the power of writing of CRs over SBCO staff vested with Divisional Administration to coerce the SBCO staff for not raising genuine objections. Hence, it is resolved to restore the power of writing of CRs to AO ICO (SB) to enable the SBCO staff for maintenance of proper accounting and auditing as per SB Control Procedure and pattern independently.

 9.      All the above mentioned issues of SBCO are lying unsettled since many years. Hence, a resolution has been passed unanimously in the Central Working Meeting held on 25.09.2022 and 26.09.2022 at Patna- Bihar to go on agitational programs like sending Email to Secretary post and Director General, Black badge campaign, Post card campaign, Lunch hour demonstration at Divisions and Hunger fast at Circle offices in case of any further inordinate delay in settlement of the above demands of SBCO.

         It is once again requested that all the above demands of SBCO may kindly be taken up seriously and settled without further delay.

 A line of reply is solicited please.

 With regards,

-Sd-

(SHP. JASMINE JALAL BEGAM)  

General Secretary

AIPSBCOEA

 

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