POSTAL JOINT COUNCIL OF ACTION OF NFPE AND THE DEMANDS INCLUDING THE DELAY IN IMPLEMENTATION OF GDS COMMITTEE REPORT AND DECIDED TO ORGANISE A TWO PHASED PROGRAMME OF ACTION

POSTAL JOINT COUNCIL OF ACTION OF NFPE AND THE DEMANDS INCLUDING THE DELAY IN IMPLEMENTATION OF GDS COMMITTEE REPORT AND DECIDED TO ORGANISE A TWO PHASED PROGRAMME OF ACTION

NATIONWIDE DHARNA AT ALL DIVISIONAL AND BRANCH LEVEL ON 29.06.2009

MASSIVE DEMONSTRATION BEFORE DAK BHAWAN IN DELHI ON 3.7.2009 ON THE DAY OF OPENING OF BUDGET SESSION OF PARLIAMENT

THESE PROGRAMMA OF ACTION IS FOR CALLING THE ATTENTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF POSTS AND GOVERNMENT TO ACT FAST IN SETTLEMENT OF BURNING ISSUES IMMEDIATELY

POSTAL JCA CIRCULAR IS REPRODUCED BELOW - CIRCLE / DIVISIONAL / BRANCH SECRETARIES ARE REQUESTED TO TAKE THE PROGRAMME CALL VERY SERIOUSLY AND MOBILIZE OUR FULL STRENGTH

Postal Joint Council of Action

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES

1^st Floor, North Avenue Post Office Building, New Delhi - 110001

FEDERATION OF NATIONAL POSTAL ORGANISATIONS

T-24, Atul Grove Road, New Delhi – 110001

JCA/1/2009 Dated 18^th June 2009

To

All General / Circle Secretaries

NFPE & FNPO Union

MASSIVE DHARNA / MASS DEMONSTRATION ON THE OPENING OF BUDGET SESSION OF PARLIAMENT

The Postal JCA of NFPE and FNPO Federations call upon the entirety of Postal Employees to organise a massive Dharna jointly under the banner of Joint Council of Action on 29.06.2009 at the level of Divisions / Branches for calling the attention of the Department of Posts to the following burning issues. As far as the Delhi Circle is concerned, there shall be a massive demonstration in front of Dak Bhawan during lunch hour on 3.7.2009, the first day of Budget Session of Parliament. A Memorandum on the following items shall be submitted to the Honourable Minister of Communications & IT and Honourable Minister of State for Communications & IT by the JCA on 3.7.2009.

The Burning issues that shall receive focus:

1. Early implementation of GDS Committee recommendations with the suggestions of staff side duly incorporated.
2. End discrimination in bonus quantum ceiling between regular and GDS as per the Bonus Act amendment.
3. Remove the arbitrary cap of 60 days in PLB for Postal Employees.
4. Fill up ADR vacancies of 2005-06 & 2006-07 in all wings and of all cadres including Multi Skilled employees.
5. Expedite Cadre Review of all cadres in Department of Posts.
6. Stop abolition of Postmen posts and beats and stop harassment of delivery staff and instructions in violation of P&T Manuals in Project Arrow Offices.
7. Cancel the order for compulsory pay disbursement through bank cheques and direct credit system.
8. Re-fix the eligibility for OTA proportionately to the 6^th CPC wage level and clear all pending OTA bills.
9. Re-fix the wages of all Casual labourers and Part Time Contingent / RRR employees on the basis of the 6^th CPC wages.
10. Grant Child Care Leave to all eligible Women Employees.

All our Divisions and Branches are called upon to take the programme call very seriously and mobilise our full strength behind the call.

With Greetings,

[D.Theagarajan] [K.Ragavendran]

Secretary General Secretary General

FNPO NFPE

POSTAL DEPARTMENT's NEW CORPORATE POLICY

POSTAL DEPARTMENT's NEW CORPORATE POLICY

CORPORATE PLAN OF DEPARTMENT OF POSTS

CORPORATE PLAN OF DEPARTMENT OF POSTS EXHIBITED IN THE DEPARTMENT WEBSITE

Department of Posts has announced a Corporate Plan in its website. It is stated that this Corporate Plan is due to Major Change in Postal Policy. The major change in policy is attaining self sufficiency within the next five years as the Government of India may not find it feasible to subsidize the postal operations any more.

The Corporate Plan declares some goals. These Goals are:

1. Post within easy reach of all by year 2013-14.

2. To be a focal point for delivery of all social security schemes of the State

by the year 2011-12.

3. To be a self-sustaining organization by the year 2013-14.

4. To increase financial inclusion of the unbanked population by at least 10%

by the year 2013-14.

The declared Goals are good. They try to concentrate on core postal functions and POSB. But these goals are expected to be arrived at by depending on mainly the Franchisee outlets and not on recruitment of staff or opening of new post offices. The Corporate Plan clearly states " The objective of providing basic postal facilities within easy reach (defined as within 1.5 km) cannot be achieved by opening more post offices. The objective of opening of post offices would be expensive and would go against the other objective of financial self-sufficiency. Accordingly, the strategy would be more on giving out franchisees to individuals, shops, institutions, etc. This would reduce the cost of achieving this objective, besides bringing in additional revenue to the Department."

No proper study of Franchisee system has been made and no opportunity was given to the staff side to look into the franchisee working scheme with transparency so far. The stand of the NFPE on this issue had been amply communicated to the Department. Despite our insistence no purposeful meeting is being arranged by the Department for mutual discussion nor the blue print of full operations of all the franchisees have been supplied to us. Now blindly the Department want to go ahead with more and more expansion of Franchisee schemes by offering to shops, institutions etc in addition to the individuals. They are the masters and we are the slaves and slaves require no convincing.

The Department had estimated that the value of USO [Universal Service Obligation] compensation was Rs.668 crores for 2004-05. The Document says that the funding of USO could be from: (i) Government funding--- the government is responsible for funding any deficit incurred in operation of universal postal services;(ii) Industry funding-- in this model, other postal players pay a fee for the operation of universal postal services by the public postal operator;(iii) Reserved price area-- a specific area of service reserved for the universal service provider so that revenues from reserved area help in 11 financing the universal postal services. The reserved service area must be clearly defined on the basis of three elements: (a) class of service (b) item weight (c) price protection for reserved services. These are issues which need to be given a legal basis by having them incorporated in the Indian Post Office Act.

But the big question is as to whether the Government has got the will to legal protection of letter mail monopoly etc by suitable amending the PO Act which it could not do on the face of stiff opposition from the corporate courier lobby. Three times such legislation was attempted in vain. Protection of letter mail monopoly; protection upto 500 grams for letters; protection of letters up to 300 grams all got diluted upto 150 grams but that too not could not be legislated.

A growth trajectory has been aimed at. It is also said that to achieve the projected growth it would require: (a) improving the quality of service by streamlining operations, and (b) working with stakeholders to increase the mail flow through the India Post system. We have no issue with improving the quality of service to customers but the interpretation of quality service differs between the staff side and the official side. The method adopted to improve the delivery efficiency in Project Arrow Offices by reducing the number of deliveries or reducing the number of postmen by the Administrative Officers at different levels are certainly at a different wavelength in contrast to our own wavelength of quality service to public. Quality service by not providing sufficient hands means quality service by magic in their interpretation. There is no meeting ground and there is no sincere attempt to reach a meeting ground. They perhaps think that they alone are ordained by nature to think and create and the workers are ordained to carry out without murmur anything and everything. Project Arrow bears full stamp of this approach. We do not know as to whether the Corporate Plan is going to be different at all!

The Corporate Plan spells out that the Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) which was started in 1995, may be further strengthened, if need be, by setting up a company. This means corporatisation / privatisation of PLI/RPLI functions.