All India Consumers Price Index for Industrial Workers for the Month of February, 2012

All India Consumers Price Index for Industrial Workers on Base 2001=100 for the Month of February, 2012

All India Consumer Price Index Number for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) on base 2001=100 for the month of February, 2012 increased by 1 point and stood at 199 (one hundred & ninety nine).

During February, 2012, the index recorded maximum increase of 5 points in Puducherry centre, 4 points each in Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Mariani Jorhat centres, 3 points in 4 centres, 2 points in 10 centres and 1 point in 30 centres. The index decreased by 5 points in Quilon centre, 3 points each in Tiruchirapally and Salem centres, 2 points in 2 centres, 1 point in 8 centres, while in the remaining 17 centres the index remained stationary.

The maximum increase of 5 points in Puducherry centre is mainly on account of increase in the prices of Rice, Goat Meat, Poultry (Chicken), Curd, Snack Saltish, Country Liquor, Refined Liquor, Shirting Cloth (Synthetic), Bus Fare, Auto-rickshaw Fare, Barber Charges, Flower/Flower Garlands etc. The increase of 4 points each in Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Mariani Jorhat centres is mainly due to increase in the prices of Rice, Groundnut Oil, Mustard Oil, Goat Meat, Fish Fresh, Vegetable & Fruit items, Tea (Readymade), Electricity Charges, Flower/Flower Garlands, etc. The decrease of 5 points in Quilon centre is due to decrease in the prices of Coconut Oil, Fish Fresh, Onion, Vegetable & Fruit items, etc. The decrease of 3 points each in Tiruchirapally and Salem centres is due to decrease in the prices of Rice, Eggs (Hen), Onion, Garlic, Tamarind, Chillies Dry, Vegetable items, Flower/Flower Garlands, etc.
The indices in respect of the six major centres are as follows :

1. Ahmedabad     196
2. Bangalore  204
3. Chennai   186

4. Delhi        182

5. Kolkata    186

6. Mumbai   200

The point to point rate of inflation based on CPI-IW(General) for the month of February, 2012 is 7.57% as compared to 5.32% in January, 2012. Inflation based on Food Index attained the level of 5.08% in February, 2012 as compared to 0.49% in January, 2012.

The CPI-IW for March, 2012 will be released on the last working day of the next month, i.e. 30th April, 2012

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IT Offices Throughout India to Remain Open Tomorrow to Facilitate Filing of Returns

IT Offices Throughout India to Remain Open Tomorrow to Facilitate Filing of Returns 

As the Financial Year 2011-12 closes on 31st March, 2012 falling on Saturday, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Ministry of Finance has issued an order directing all the Income Tax Offices throughout India to remain open on this day. The receipts counters will also work during normal office hours. The direction has been issued for administrative convenience by the CBDT in exercise of powers conferred under section 119 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, 

CBDT has also directed that special arrangements may also be made by way of opening additional receipt counters, wherever required on 30th and 31st March 2012 to facilitate the taxpayers in filing their returns of income conveniently.

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Pension to Retired Employees

Pension to Retired Employees 

The Government had introduced the New Pension System (NPS) from 1st January, 2004 through a Notification dated 22nd December, 2003 for new entrants to Central Government service, on mandatory basis, except to Armed Forces, joining service on or after 01.01.2004 replacing the existing system of defined benefit pension system. NPS has also been extended to autonomous bodies, State Governments and un-organised sector. The employees working in Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) are not covered mandatorily under NPS. However, three CPSEs, viz Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd. Manganese Ore (India Ltd. ) and NALCO have adopted NPS on voluntarily basis with effect from 01.01.2004, 01.07.2011 and 01.01.2007 respectively. 

This information was given by the Minister of State for Finance, Shri Namo Narain Meena in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.

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Management of Funds Under NPS

Management of Funds Under NPS

The investment of pension funds of Government employees, who are covered as subscribers to the New Pension System (NPS), was hitherto being made through a pooling arrangement whereby the funds of such employees were credited to a pool account (pending reconciliation of subscribers’ contribution details) from which such funds were allocated to pension fund managers for immediate investment in the best interest of the subscribers. These funds of the Government employees are being managed based on the investment Pattern prescribed by the Government.

The pension funds of the Government employees, who are covered by NPS, are managed by three pension fund managers, namely, SBI Pension Funds (Pvt.) Limited, UTI Retirement Solutions Limited and LIC Pension Fund Limited. 

The Pool account is proposed to be discontinued from 1st May, 2012. Thereafter, it would be possible for the individual subscribers to exercise their individual choices regarding investment pattern and the pension fund manager. 

NPS is a defined contribution based pension system where the actual returns would be determined by the market based returns. 

This information was given by the Minister of State for Finance, Shri Namo Narain Meena in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today

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Interest Subsidy on Education Loan

Interest Subsidy on Education Loan

Ministry of Human Resource Development has formulated an Interest Subsidy Scheme to provide full interest subsidy during the period of moratorium on educational loans taken by students belonging to economically weaker sections from scheduled banks under the Model Educational Loan Scheme of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) for pursuing any of the approved courses of studies in technical and professional streams from recognized institutions in India.

Students whose parental income is less than Rs. 4.5 lakhs per annum and are enrolled in recognized technical & professional courses, after class twelfth, in India are eligible under the scheme. Educational loans of such students disbursed from 1st April 2009, irrespective of date of sanction are eligible for interest subsidy.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Finance, Shri Namo Narain Meena in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

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Incentives to Work in Rural Areas

Incentives to Work in Rural Areas

The Government of India has taken various measures to provide monetary and non monetary incentives to attract skilled medical and para medical professionals to work in rural areas. These include: 

1. Monetary incentives under NRHM for both regular, adhoc and contractual staff posted in hard to reach and difficult areas. 

2. The Central Government in consultation with the Medical Council of India, has made the following amendments to its PG Medical Education Regulations to encourage doctors to serve in rural areas : 

i. 50 % reservation in PG Diploma courses for Medical Officers in the Government service who served for at least three consecutive years in remote and difficult areas ; 

ii. Incentive at rate of 10 % of the marks obtained for each year in service in remote or difficult areas upto the maximum of 30 % of the marks obtained in the entrance test for admissions in PG Medical course. 

3. Improved accommodation for healthcare personnel has been provided through NRHM at many rural facilities. Also health facilities have been upgraded and better equipped. 

This information was given by Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad in reply to a question on shortage of medical and paramedical staff in the rural areas in Rajya Sabha today. 

Augmentation of human resource is one of the thrust areas under National Rural Health Mission [NRHM]. 2914 Specialists, 8722 Doctors, 10995 AYUSH Doctors, 33411 Staff Nurses, 69662 ANMs, 14529 Para Medics and 3894 AYUSH Para Medics have been engaged on contractual basis to increase the availability in the rural areas. Various reasons attributed for shortage include non availability of requisite number of doctors and paramedics, shortage of medical colleges and training institutes and unwillingness on the part of doctors to work in rural areas. 

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New Recruitment Policy for Constable (GD) in CAPF

New Recruitment Policy for Constable (GD) in CAPF

Requests from the Government of Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal were received for changes/modifications in the recruitment scheme of Constable/GD in the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) & Assam Rifles (ARs) for ensuring higher representation of the candidates of these and some other States.

             The details of these references are as under:

(i)                 Government of Karnataka had requested for allowing the use of regional languages in the written test for the recruitment of Constable(GD) in CAPFs & ARs; giving wide publicity through advertisements in the regional languages at least one month before the due date; and for giving relaxation in height by 2.5 centimeters to the candidates of the Southern States (Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala & Tamil Nadu).

(ii)               Government of West Bengal had requested for a special dispensation/relaxations for the Gorkhas for recruitment in the Central Armed Police Forces in view of setting up of Gorkha Territorial Administration  (GTA).

(iii)             Government of Himachal Pradesh had requested to do away with the policy of proportional recruitment based on population of the State and make such recruitments purely based on merit.

The following steps have been taken by the Union Government to address the concerns of these States:-

i)          From the year 2012, the written examination of Constable/GD shall also be conducted in some of the  regional languages, including Malayalam (Kerala), Kannada (Karnataka), Telegu (Andhra Pradesh) & Tamil (Tamil Nadu), in addition to Hindi & English.

ii)         Wide publicity is given by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) for the recruitment of Constable/GD in CAPFs & ARs through advertisement in the Employment News and local news papers in regional languages as well as through press conferences and Audio & Visual media.  The details of steps taken for publicizing the recruitments to be affected in the year 2012 are as follows:-

(a)        Notices were issued in Employment News;

(b)        Notices were issued in the leading news papers including that of regional languages all over India through Directorate of Audio Visual Publicity;

(c)        The services of Prasar Bharti for audio & visual publicity has been taken, which includes advertisement on 18 Rainbow, 4 Gold FM Channels and National News;

(d)       National Doordarshan, having access in rural areas, has been used by utilizing DD News where a Scroll Message was run in every alternate cycle for 24 hours in a day for 30 days on National News and Regional News (in 08 States covering Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, J&K, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura)

(e)        Press Information Bureau was given Press Notes for publicity of the recruitment.

(f)        Chairman, SSC publicized the recruitment through press conferences held at Guwahati, Aizwal, Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Trivandrum.

iii)        The physical standard for the youth of Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA) has been relaxed as follows so that more youth become eligible for recruitment as Constable/GD in CAPFs & ARs:

Parameter	Gender	Physical standards after relaxation for candidates other that ST (in cms)	Physical standards after relaxation for ST candidates (in cms)
Height (inCms)	Male	162.5	160
	Female	152.5	147.5
Chest (inCms)	Male	77	76

This was stated by Shri Jitendra Singh, Minister of State of Home Affairs in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today

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Karnataka Pay Commission :Pay, allowances, retirement benefits

Karnataka state Pay Commission

After six years, the State government on Wednesday proposed to effect revision on salaries of its employees, based on the recommendations of the official pay committee constituted in June 2011.

As per the committee’s recommendation, the total hike in salaries is 22.5 pc, inclusive of 15 pc interim relief, which was announced in November, 2011. 

The hike is expected to cost the State government an additional expenditure of Rs 4,450 crore.

The revised pay scales, allowances and pensions which are proposed to come into effect from April 1, will have 76.75 pc DA merged with the basic pay. 

The 76.75 pc includes the pending total accumulated DA of around 69.5 pc from 2006 to December 2011 plus around 7.5 pc accumulated DA from January 2012 to June 2012. From June onwards, the 7.5 pc DA will continue as usual.  

Four slabs

The salaries have been divided into four slabs – for group ‘D’ employees, first division assistants, class I officers, and KAS and posts occupied by non-IAS officers. 

Group D workers (minimum pay scale) who were being paid Rs 4,800 in Bangalore city will now be paid around Rs 12,400 (9,600 basic + 25 pc HRA + Rs 300 CCA). 

The same worker in ‘B’ class cities/towns will get 16 pc HRA; those in ‘C‘ class cities/towns will get 10 pc HRA; and those in ‘D’ class cities/towns will get 7 pc HRA. They will not be entitled to CCA. KAS officers who occupy posts which could be occupied by KAS officers and non-IAS officers in cities who come under the maximum payscale slab were being paid a basic salary of Rs 39,900. 

As per the proposed revision, they will now get a basic salary of Rs 79,800 plus. If 25 pc HRA plus Rs 400 CCA is added, they will get a salary of Rs 1 lakh or more. There are around 12 lakh government employees including pensioners. 

The Karnataka State Government Employees’ Association president U D Narasimhaiah said that the pay revision was disappointing and that the Association would reject the proposal.

“The government has only effected 22.5 pc salary hike, while we had demanded a 40 pc hike. With the growing inflation, the plight of government employees is bad, and we have been met out injustice. The chief minister should set this right,” he said.

Proposed salary revision* Minimum pay (basic) as in 2006 – Rs 4,800; proposed pay – Rs 9,600 (Group ‘D’ employees)

* Minimum pay (basic) as in 2006 – Rs 7,275; proposed pay – Rs 14,550 (I Division Assistants)

* Maximum pay (basic) as in 2006 – Rs 28,275; proposed pay – Rs 56,550 (Class I officers)

* Max pay (basic) as in 2006 – Rs 39,900; proposed pay – Rs 79,800 (KAS and posts occupied by non-IAS officers)

Allowances

* House Rental Allowance, classification of cities, towns, other places reduced from six to four groups. Minimum rate HRA increased from 6 pc to 7 pc

* CCA increased from Rs 80 – Rs 300 to Rs 250 – Rs 400

* Medical allowance for group ‘C’ and ‘D’ employees increased from Rs 50 per month to Rs 100 per month

* Other allowances, special allowance and benefits increased.

Retirement benefits

* Minimum and maximum pension to be Rs 4,800 per month and Rs 39,900 per month respectively

* Minimum and maximum family pension to be Rs 4,800 per month and Rs 23,940 per month respectively

* Pension/family pension of past retirees to be calculated by adding to basic pension/family pension as on April 1, 2012; DA at 76.75 pc and fitment benefit of 22.5 pc subject to a minimum of Rs 4,800 per month 

Source : Deccan Herald

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