Wednesday, December 19, 2012

NOINO DELEGATION MEETS ED (P)

              A NOINO delegation consisting of our newly elected General Secretary Smt. Anagha Sant; Shri Ganesh Kamath, Chief Advisor; Shri Sanjay Ramdasi, Jt. Treasurer; Shri Dattaraj Prabhukhanolkar, Resident Secretary, NOINO; Shri Manish Patankar, Jt Secy, NOINO WZ unit, met the Executive Director (P) Shri M R Kumar and Shri T R Mendiratta, Chief (Personnel) on 14th December 2012. The following issues were discussed:-

A)   Batches for Promotion: In the ensuing promotion round of 2013, the AO batches of 2005 & 2006 & the ADM batch of 2008 have not been considered for promotion by the management. We strongly protested this fact & demanded that these batches should be considered. We submitted that by this decision, the officers are frustrated, demoralized & there is a lot of unrest among them. We presented our analysis of the statistics & argued that it was possible to consider these batches. ED (P) said that he would examine the statistics presented by us. However, he did not sound positive on this issue. We have suggested a few solutions. The primary solution was to increase vacancies. Just as AAO & AO cadres are considered inter-changeable, ADM & DM could also be considered inter-changeable & more officers can be accommodated. We also suggested that just as an AO is posted in a branch where BM is posted, similarly, ADM could be posted where SBM is posted. Splitting of portfolios can also be a solution. We also suggested that the current procedure of promotion should give way to the procedure of ‘promotion by application’. By this way, only those who are interested in promotion in the particular year would be considered & to that extent the competition would be reduced. On this particular issue (of ‘promotion by application’), ED(P) sounded positive. However, he said that the management would consider the implementation of this suggestion next year. We have also suggested long-term solutions (already demanded in our charter) like running scales & granting grades & benefits for eligible officers missing promotion for want of vacancies. NOINO will decide the future course of action in this matter shortly.

B)    One more Pension Option:- We have once again reiterated our demand for this and  stressed(once again) that this should not be linked with our wage revision. ED(P) sounded positive on this issue & said that management would be following up the issue with Finance Ministry.

C)  Fixing of Responsibility for Excess/Wrong Payments:-  We pointed out that in some Divisions only Officers are held responsible and are pressurized to pay the amount. We have already raised this issue with the MD Shri Sushobhan Sarker on 11th October 2012. We have offered some solutions like “Fidelity Insurance” and creating a “Reserve Fund” to cover the Excess/Wrong Payments”. We said that after shifting our dependence to the computerized system, it is illogical to fix the responsibility, except for gross negligence or intentional mistakes. The incidence of such cases (the proportion of excess/wrong payments to total payments) is very low. The Outstanding amount is only about 40 crores. Out of this only about 40% was outstanding from policyholders. Due to shortage of staff, it is not possible to adhere to the usual procedure of one employee each for preparing, checking & passing the voucher. Resultantly, only two instead of three employees do the job. Thus, the risk increases, so also the amount of recovery from each employee. It is also not possible to check 100% payments while adhering to the customers’ demand and our cut off dates. On one hand, we expect the employees to meet the dead-lines of Claims settlement as well as maintain ‘NIL’ ratio & on the other hand we expect that no errors should be committed & manual calculations should be done. It is also expected that while settling claims, even premium should be calculated. This is practically impossible.  We asked a simple question. If the Data Vigilance Module can detect errors, then why care has not been taken to incorporate steps in the programming so that errors do not occur at all? ED(P) was very positive on this issue & said that he would be immediately talking to the IT authorities in this matter.

D)  Commencing Discussions on Charter of Demands”:- The delegation has  once again raised this issue and demanded that the management should immediately invite the unions for discussions on the charter. We submitted the “Addendum to the Charter of Demand” in “Core Financial Issues on actual DA applicable as on 1st August 2012. We also reiterated that our charter should not be linked with “Banking Sector”. ED (P) said that the management was constantly following up this matter with the Ministry. There were some practical problems & when the management would be in a position to offer something it would invite the unions for discussions.
.
E)  Class III recruitment & paucity of cashiers:- We have again raised this issue and also reiterated the need for it. The pressure of work in branches has increased manifold the major brunt of the same has to be faced by the Class I officers. ED (P) replied that some formula is being calculated to find out actual number of vacancies branch wise & some data collection was going on. He said that Class III recruitment was on the agenda of the management. We also raised the issue of shortage of cashiers & demanded recruitment of personnel exclusively as cashiers to ease the burden on the Class I Officers & to reduce the problems in the branches. ED(P) was not very positive on this issue & expressed that recruitment of Class III would be the best solution to this problem.
  
F)   Mediclaim Subsidy for Class One officers:- We once again pointed out that while this subsidy was 3/4th for Class III, Class IV & also retired employees(including retired Class I Officers), the subsidy was 2/3rd for Class I Officers & strongly demanded that the Class I Officers should also be granted 3/4th subsidy. ED (P) was very positive about this issue & agreed to consider this demand shortly.

G)  Compulsion of filing Property returns for Class One officers:- We once again raised this  issue & expressed our dissatisfaction over the selective targeting of Class I Officers. We also protested the fact that such filing of property returns has been linked with the promotion & demanded that this condition should be removed forthwith. We submitted that the purported logic behind such compulsion was to have a check on corruption & also to check whether any person has assets disproportionate to his income. We submitted that the origin of corruption was in the mind & not depended on any cadre. ED (P) was not positive on this issue.  He said that submission of the property returns is in the best interest of the officers and especially for those who may occupy “key posts” in the organization. The numbers of anonymous complaints against the officers in key post have increased with the advent of RTI. He also told that unless and until any vigilance complaint is raised by an authority like CBI, the packets of property returns are not opened at all. He also appealed that the officers should give correct information to safe guard one’s own interest.

H)  Restriction on mail recipients: - We once again raised this issue & said that this move on the part of the management to restrict the number of mail recipients was undemocratic & gave rise to many practical problems. ED (P) assured to examine this issue at a later date.

NOINO would be following up these issues in the future. The future course of action on the above issues would be decided shortly.

No comments:

Post a Comment