Facilities for Women Passengers for buying Train Tickets at Reservation Counters

Ministry of Railways has been providing special facilities to women passengers for conveniently buying tickets at railway reservation counters. The Ministry has further elaborated facilities as follows: -

(a) At computerized reservation office, a separate reservation counter should be earmarked for ladies if the average demand per shift is not less than 120 tickets.

(b) In case, there is no justification for earmarking of exclusive counter for ladies, the requests received from ladies should be dealt with along with the reservation requests of the specific categories viz. senior citizen, physically handicapped, ex. MPs, MLAs, accredited journalists, freedom fighters etc.

(c) At those reservation offices where separate reservation counters have not been earmarked for ladies and also those locations which have not been computerized, ladies/female passengers should not be compelled to join the general queues and be attended to separately at the same counter as for general passengers. A suitable notice board about the availability of this facility should also be displayed near the reservation counter. This facility will however be available only from 11:30 hours to avoid misuse of this facility by unscrupulous elements to block accommodation during opening hours of general and Tatkal reservation.

(d) Ladies may be allowed to purchase tickets from these reservation counters irrespective of persons for whom the reservation is being sought. However, no other persons will be allowed to purchase ticket for them from these counters.

(e) As far as earmarking of separate unreserved ticket counters for ladies, zonal Railways have been asked to assess the demand and do the needful based on the same.

Source:http://www.pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=0

PFRDA pitches for investing 50% pension funds in stock mkt -NPS NEWS

Currently, the proposal is lying with the government for consideration and PRFDA is actively following it, he said.

Contractor said it is one of the recommendations of the G N Bajpai committee stating the investment of pension funds into stocks market should be enhanced. Pension fund regulator PRFDA Wednesday asked the Centre to raise the limit of government employees' pension funds in the stock market up to 50 percent.

The pension funds under PFRDA is allowed to invest only up to 15 percent of the corpus into stocks market. "We want that state and central government employees should be allowed to invest more in equity. They should also get the same exposure to the stock market as the employees of private sector get which is at 50 percent," PFRDA Chairman Hemant G Contractor said today.

 Currently, the proposal is lying with the government for consideration and PRFDA is actively following it, he said. Contractor said it is one of the recommendations of the G N Bajpai committee stating the investment of pension funds into stocks market should be enhanced.

Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) had set up an expert panel under the chairmanship of ex-Sebi chief G N Bajpai to review investment guidelines for national pension system (NPS) schemes in private sector. On the rationale behind the proposal, the Chairman said equity in the long run is always better performing than other instruments.

The committee has recommended diversifying investment portfolio of NPS scheme into private equity and venture capital funds. PFRDA regulates NPS, which is subscribed by employees of both central and state governments, besides private institutions and unorganised sectors. At present, NPS funds can be invested in government securities, corporate bonds and equities.

The Centre had introduced the New Pension System (NPS) in January 2004. Total assets managed under NPS are about Rs 82,000 crore, while the private sector's contribution is just Rs 5,000 crore.

Source:http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/current-affairs/pfrda-pitches-for-investing-50-pension-fundsstock-mkt_3109961.html?utm_source=ref_article

Wishing all members and track in viewers a very Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

Lalbaugcha Raja Mumbai 2015 

Ganesha Chaturthi (Gaṇēśa Caturthī orVināyaka Caviti) is the Hindu festival celebrated in honour of the god Ganesha, the elephant-headed. The festival, also known as Vinayaka Chaturthi, is observed in the Hindu calendarmonth of Bhaadrapada, starting on the shuklachaturthi (fourth day of the waxing moonperiod). The date usually falls between August and September. The festival usually lasts for 10 days, ending on Anant Chaturdashi (fourteenth day of the waxing moon period).

The modern festival involves installing clay images of Ganesha in public pandals(temporary shrines), which are worshipped for ten days. These are immersed at the end of the festival in a body of water such as a lake, along with the idol. Some Hindus also install the clay images of Ganesha in their homes. The festival was celebrated as a public event since the days of Maratha King Shivaji (1630–1680). However, the public festival as celebrated in Maharashtra today, was introduced by Bhausaheb Laxman Javale in 1892 by installing first Sarvajanik (Public) Ganesh idol- Shrimant Bhausaheb Rangari Ganpati, Bhudwar Peth, in Pune. The first meeting regarding starting the Sarvajanik Ganesh utsav took place under the leadership of Bhausaheb Laxman Javale at his residence (Bhudwar Peth) now known as Bhau Rangari Bhavan. In 1893 Lokmanya Tilak praised the concept of Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav in Kesari Newspaper. In 1894, he installed Ganesh idol in Kesari wada, Pune too and started preaching Ganesh Utsav.

While celebrated all over India, it is grandest and most elaborate of them especially inMaharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana,Rajasthan,Tamilnadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and in other parts of Western India  and Southern India.Outside India, it is celebrated widely in Terai region of Nepal and by the Hindu diaspora in the United States, Canada, Mauritius, and other.

A traditional legend about Ganesha's birth is that Parvati, the consort of Shiva, created Ganesha out of mala (dirt) off her body while having a bath and breathed life into the figure. She then set him the task of guarding her door while she bathed. Shiva, who had gone out, returned and as Ganesha didn't know him, didn't allow him to enter. After the combat between Ganesha and Shiva Ganas, finally angry Shiva severed the head of the child. Parvati seeing this became enraged and Shiva then promised that her son will be alive again. The devas searched for the head of dead person facing North, but they found only the head of an elephant. They brought the head of the elephant and Shiva fixed it on the child's body and brought him back to life. Lord Shiva also declared that from this day the boy would be called Ganesha (Gana Isha : Lord of Ganas).

According to the Linga Purana, Ganesha was created by Shiva and Parvati at the request of the devas (divine beings) to be a vighnakartaa(obstacle-creator) in the path of rakshasas(demonic beings), and a vighnahartaa (obstacle-averter) to help the devas.

Commemorative Stamps on "Valour and Sacrifice-1965 War" - 15th September 2015.

Honour, selfless service and the spirit of sacrifice are ingrained tenets of the Indian Armed Forces, preserved as part of their glorious tradition, enabling them to acquit themselves commendably both in war and peace. In the face of grave personal danger, the Indian Soldier, Sailor and Air Warrior have never hesitated in making the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. The same has been amply evident throughout the history of our Nation, in the face of many challenges faced. One such example of a Glorious Victory was witnessed in 1965, wherein our Armed Forces exhibited tremendous grit, determination and fortitude; living up to the faith reposed in them by the Indian Nation and its leaders.

 

The glory of the 1965 War is preserved in the collective bravery displayed by the Indian Armed Forces, possible largely because of the ardent support of the entire Nation. This glory has been recognised through the award of 16 Battle Honours and three Theatre Honours, two PVCs besides numerous MVCs, VrCs and Mentions-in-Despatches. The heroism of CQMH Abdul Hamid and Lt Col AB Tarapore, who were posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra will live on in the glorious history of our Nation. The history of the Glorious Victory of the Indian Armed Forces in 1965 is testimony to the credo that the Safety, Honour and Welfare of the country comes first, always, and every time, for the Indian Armed Forces.

 

To commemorate 50 years of the Glorious Victory of 1965 Indo – Pak War six day long exhibition ‘Shauryanjali’ has been organized by Armed Forces at India Gate lawns. The Exhibition recreates all the major battle scenes of the 1965 war and brings back the nostalgic events where our soldiers not only successfully defended the border of the country but also made territorial gains in Pakistan. The Exhibition is open to the general public from 15th September, 2015 to 20th September, 2015 from 9 am to 9 pm.

 

On the occasion a set of three commemorative stamps on theme "Valour and Sacrifice-1965 War" was released by the Union Minister for Communications & Information Technology, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad at the Exhibition at India Gate, in New Delhi on 15th September, 2015. The Stamps depicts the spirit and resoluteness of purpose displayed by the three wings of Indian Armed Forces during the 1965 war and how the Nation stood with the soldier in the bond of brotherhood which is so vital for the defence of the Motherland.

 

 

 

Photo Courtesy: PIB

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Selection Process for engagement to all approved categories of GDS Posts - Review thereof

Department of Posts (Establishment Division (GDS Section) letter No.17-39/2012-GDS dated 16-09-2015 

No. l7-39/2012-GDS 

Government of India

Ministry of Communications & IT

Department of Posts

Establishment Division

(GDS Section)

Dak Bhawan, Sansad Marg

New Delhi - 110001

Dated: 16 Sep 2015

All Heads of Postal Circles

Subject: Selection Process for engagement to all approved categories of GDS Posts Review thereof

Attention of all concerned is invited to this Directorate’s letter No. 17-39/7/2012-GDS dated 14th Jan 2015 vide which detailed selection process to the GDS Posts was introduced based on Aptitude Test to be conducted at Circle level through outsourced agency and selection to the GDS Posts was prescribed to be made based on marks secured in the Aptitude Test in respect of vacancies notified on or after 01.04.2015. Subsequent thereto, it was also laid down vide this Directorate’s letter No. 17-39/7/2012-GDS dated 28th May 2015 that in case vacancies notified on or before 31.03.2015 do not get filled up by 30.06.2015, the notification will be cancelled and vacancies be filled up under the new engagement process (Aptitude Test Method) effective from 01.04.2015.

2. In View of the pronouncement of the Hon’ble Prime Minister in his address to the Nation delivered on 15th Aug 2015 to make selection to the junior level posts based on marks appearing in the marks sheet without an element of interview through transparent online process, the selection process introduced vide this Directorate’s letter ibid has been reviewed by the authority competent to align the selection process/criteria with the pronouncement made by the Hon’ble Prime Minister taking note of the fact that GDS posts are lower level civil posts outside the regular civil service not falling under Group A, B & C posts by replacing the process introduced vide this Directorate’s letter No. 17-39/7/2012-GDS dated 14th Jan 2015, pending introduction of online process in due course, in the manner indicated below:-

(a) There will be no change in the eligibility criteria laid down in this Directorate’s letter No. 17-39/6/2012-GDS dated 14.01.2015 & strict observance of the same will be ensured by all recruiting authorities concerned while issuing notification.

(b) The recruiting authorities will be guided by the below mentioned method of engagement to all approved categories of GDS Posts:-

(i) In case a vacancy does not get filled up through other regular modes of engagement viz.; by combination of duties or by absorption of surplus GDS or by compassionate engagement or by transfer under limited transfer facility, vacancy will be notified first to casual labourers within the jurisdiction of the recruiting authority as per existing instructions contained in this Directorate’s letter No. 17-3 9/4/2012-GDS dated 14.01.2015 read with clarification issued under No. 17-15/2015-GDS dated 07.05.2015.

(ii) In case vacancy does not get filled up through process outlined at (i) above, the recruiting authority before taking decision to fill up the post by way of open notification is to examine the representation of the reserved communities and then decide to which community the vacancy is to be earmarked or the vacancy would go to other community based on order of shortfall subject to overall restriction of 50% in a calendar year strictly as per this Directorate letter no. 19-11/97-ED& TRG dated 27.11.1997. As regards, differently abled persons are concerned, instructions contained in this Directorate letter no. 21-8/92-ED&TRG dated 22.04.1994 shall have the application.

(iii) The vacancy will then be notified to Employment Exchange requesting nomination of suitable candidates [not less than 3] for the post within a period of 30 days from the date of sending requisition to the concerned authority having the prescribed qualification. Simultaneously [on the same day of notification of vacancy to Employment. Exchange], the vacancy will be given wide publicity by displaying a notice giving particulars of the engagement to be made, remuneration and other conditions attached to it at the concerned post office, the police station, the Panchayat office and any other public place considered suitable allowing the same time of 30 days for receipt of applications. A copy of the notification will also be circulated to all Post Offices within the Division duly entered in Account Bag for display on Notice Board. In case the last date falls on Sunday/Holidays, the cut of date will be reckoned as close of subsequent working day.

(iv) The candidates nominated by employment exchange (if any) will then be addressed by service registered post enclosing a copy of the application for the post with a covering letter containing instructions to fill-up the same and self attested documents to be enclosed for further submission to the recruiting authority concerned within 30 days mentioning the cutoff date up to which the application duly completed is to be received by recruiting authority by Registered / Speed Post. Here also, In case the last date falls on Sunday/Holidays, the cut of date will be reckoned as close of subsequent working day.

(v) The candidates nominated by the Employment Exchange as also those responding to the open advertisement will be considered. 

(vi) The recruiting authorities concerned will arrange /maintain a register for keeping a proper record of the application received from the candidates applying against open notification as also in response to communication sent by them following their nomination from Employment Exchange on a day to day basis. However, the closed covers will not be opened till the day earmarked for selection.

(vii) The authority higher to recruiting authority will nominate a committee consisting of three members including the recruiting authority with two others not below the rank of Inspector Posts. Besides the said authority will decide the date on which such committee will meet for finalizing selection.

(viii) Selection will be made by the committee strictly based on marks secured only in Secondary School Examination pass certificate of 1oth standard conducted by any recognized Board of School Education in India and will be guided by the clarification issued under this Directorate’s letter No. 17-39/2012-GDS dated 08.01.2014. The committee will also prepare a select panel of 5 candidates for a post in accordance with directions contained in this Directorate’s letter No. 19-14/2010-GDS dated 25.06.2010 followed by letter dated 18.10.2013.

(ix) Result will be communicated to the candidate standing first in the list on the same day of selection through Registered post. Besides, a copy of the result will be displayed on the notice board of the recruiting authority on the day of finalization itself. 

(x) Pre-engagement formalities will be got completed by the recruiting authority concerned in respect of the candidate standing at the top besides only verification of the documents in respect of other four remaining candidates finding place in the select panel. 

3. Wherever notification has been issued adopting the new method of selection made effective from 01.04.2015, the same will be cancelled and the concerned recruiting authorities will be directed to initiate action to fill up the post taking recourse to the process outlined above. Besides this, where vacancies have been notified on or before 31.03.2015, action will be taken by the respective recruiting authorities by completing the process already undertaken. 

4. The contents of this letter may be disseminated to all concerned for strict adherence.

(Surender Kumar)

Assistant Director General (GDS/PCC)

Source:http://www.indiapost.gov.in/dop/pdfbind.ashx?id=1606

Source :http://www.indiapost.gov.in/dop/pdfbind.ashx?id=1606

Source :http://www.indiapost.gov.in/dop/pdfbind.ashx?id=1606

Revision Cycle Maintenance Allowance of GDS Employees w.e.f 15.09.2015

• Rate of CMA are revised @ Rs 90 per month with immediate effect.
• CMA of GDS staff will be increased by 25% as & when the DA payable on revised pay scales goes up by 50% in future.

REPLY OF DEPARTMENT OF POSTS ON DEMANDS OF PJCA DHARNA BY ALL INDIA LEADERS TO BE HELD ON 22.09.2015 AT NEW DELHI.

No.08/13/2015-SR 

             Government of India

Ministry of Communications & IT

Department of Posts

                                                                  

                                Dak Bhawan, New Delhi

                               Dated:  17^th September, 2015.

 To

The Secretary General,

National Federation of Postal Employees,

1^st Floor, North Avenue Post Office Building,

New Delhi-110001

The Secretary General,

Federation of National Postal Organisations,

T-24, Atul Grove Road,

New Delhi-110001.

 Subject: Holding of day long Dharna on 22-09-2015 by Postal Joint Council of   

 Action (PJCA) - Regarding.

Sir,

         

            I am directed to refer to your Circular No.PF-PJCA/2015 dated 12^th August, 2015 on the above mentioned subject and to send herewith the following point wise information relating to the Charter of Demands:-

      (i)     Include GDS in 7^th CPC for wage revision and other service related matters:-

 Ministry of Finance has not agreed to the proposal of this Department for inclusion of GDS within the purview of 7^th CPC inspite of several attempts. 

(ii)    Implement cadre Restructuring proposal in all cadres including Postal Accounts and MMS in Department of Posts:-

Cadre restructuring proposal of Group ‘C’ employees:  The proposal is pending with the Department of Expenditure, M/o Finance at present.

The Cadre Restructuring proposal of Stenographers cadre is under examination.

Postal Accounts Cadre: Regarding restructuring of Sorter, LDC and DEO cadre in PAO’s, views of both the Associations viz. AIPAEA, BPAOEA have been called for vide letter dated 29^th June, 2015. It would be processed further on receipt of necessary inputs from them.

MMS Cadre:  The case of MMS is under process.

(iii)    Fill up vacant posts in all cadres of Department of Posts :-

(a)    As regards vacancies of LDC/JA/Stenographers under DR quota the necessary details have been uploaded on the SSC’s Website.  Further action would be taken on receipt of dossiers from the SSC. 

(b)    Abeyance order dated 27-04-2015 issued in r/o PA/SA DR Exam 2014 has been revoked in 10 Circles namely Andhra Pradesh, Assam, J&K, Karnataka, Kerala, North East, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Punjab and these Circles will now be filling up PA/SA DR 2014 held up vacancies.

(c)   Work of conduct of PA/SA DR Exam for the vacancies of 2015-16 has been entrusted to the SSC and in its notification dated 13-06-2015, 3506 vacancies have been announced to be filled up.            Examination is scheduled in the month of November, 2015.

(d)  The necessary instructions have been issued to fill up the vacancies in Postman/Mailguard and MTS cadre and circles are in the process of filling up these vacancies.

(e)    Instructions already exists for filling up of vacant posts of GDS Mail Man.

2.       In view of the fact that all the issues are under active consideration and being processed, the Federations are advised to cancel the Dharna as no useful purpose is served through agitations/dharnas.

Yours faithfully,

     -sd-

( Arun Malik )

Director (SR & Legal)

Source NFPE blog

INDIA TO LAUNCH ITS OWN OPERATING SYSTEM 'BOSS'

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing has announced the launch of BOSS-Bharat Operating Systems Solutions, a Linux based operating system GNU/Linux version 3.0 in 18 languages, reports The Hindu.

The OS is equipped with Bluetooth for short-range communications and has features such as RSS feed reader and PDF viewer to edit. BOSS GNU/Linux is a key deliverable of the National Resource Centre for free/open source software (NRCFOSS).

M. R. Rajagopalan, Director, C-DAC, said BOSS being a free software, would help reduce the IT spends and would be most beneficial to the end-users and the organizations that adopted this software.

S. Ramakrishnan, Director General, C-DAC, said several State Governments had recognized the advantages of using open source software. C-DAC had also entered into a pact with National Informatics Centre and State Governments of Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Bihar for deploying BOSS for their e-governance projects.

He also said that the positive response from the government organizations has encouraged them to initiate 3-tier support centre and also has plans to extend the support to its customers via a 24x7 help desk.

The Chennai centre is working on developing a SaaS (Software as a Service) delivery stack based on model driven architecture. Besides, it has taken up the initiative in cloud computing by setting up a laboratory. C-DAC is also aiming to broaden the facility of its data centre to government organizations.

Source SA POST Blog

Review of Promotion Guidelines for promotion of IAS Officers - clarifications - regarding

To view DoPT OM dated 16th September 2015, please CLICK HERE.

Introduction of 'Gold Monetization Schemes'

To view Department of Economic Affairs (Investment Division) OM No.20/6 /2015-FT dated 15-09-2015 please Click Here.

Introduction of 'Sovereign Gold Bonds Scheme'

To view Department of Economic Affairs (Investment Division) OM No.20/10 /2014-FT dated 15-09-2015 please Click Here.