The daylong dharna –anshan programme of the Joint Co-ordination Committee was a resounding success, with Inspectors and Superintendents from all across the country gathering at Jantar Mantar today in large numbers. Inspiring addresses by the national office –bearers of both Associations amidst spirited slogan-shouting marked the beginning of the programme. As the day progressed, the number of participants swelled, with fresh batches arriving from far and near, by road, rail and air. Repeatedly the demands of these two most stagnating and suffering cadres in the CBEC were raised by loud slogans and speeches, and the enthusiasm had to be seen and heard to be believed.
Media persons of the local and national newspapers/news-agencies/tv newschannels visited the protest site at regular intervals to cover our programme, and it is expected that it will be widely reported.
On the invitation of the Chairman, CBEC, conveyed through a high-ranking Board official, a delegation of office bearers of both Associations participated in a meeting at North Block at 1.00 pm.
Besides the Chairman, three other senior officers of the Board including the JS(Admin.) were present in the meeting.
After welcoming the Association representatives, the Chairman assured that the Board was seized of all issues that were being faced by our two cadres, and they were working to adequately address all problems at the earliest. A significant and welcome development in this direction was that the CBEC has now sent the Cadre Re-structuring Proposal again to the Deptt. of Expenditure after preparing a well-reasoned and argued reply on all the observations made by them. The revised proposals submitted by the Board remain, by and large, unchanged. Following that the Chairman himself met the Secretary(Expenditure), who is also the Secretary (Finance) on 4th May 2011. The JS(Admin.), Deptt. of Expenditure was also present then, and according to our Chairman, his impression is that Expenditure now appears convinced with the reasons advanced by the Board to justify the proposed steep increase in the number of entry level Gr ‘A’ posts and the substantial expansion of the organisational set-up, and that he expects that they will see to it that the proposals get past Expenditure by this month-end.
On the matter of in-situ proposals for promotions of Gr ‘B’ officers, the Chairman informed that the Committee set up within the Board has finalised its recommendations, and very soon, the same will be sent to the DoP&T for approval. JS(Admin) informed that all aspects were being minutely examined and and the proposals are being formulated keeping in mind any objections that could crop up at the later stages of approval required from other Ministries.
We demanded that topmost priority be accorded to our concerns of speedy implementation of the in-situ scheme incorporating our suggestions that it should be a continuing scheme, and that there should be no residency period restriction for advancing benefits under the scheme, since the proposed promotions are non-functional, in any case. The Chairman assured us that this would be considered.
The other major issue discussed was the parity with Customs issue. The Associations took strong exception to the unwarranted delay being made to file the required affidavit in the Supreme Court on the ratio issue. We also raised the issue of delay in lifting the ban on ICT. The Chairman appreciated the Assn’s concerns and assured that he will discuss the issue in the next meeting of the full Board, besides instructing the JS(Admin) to get the affidavit filed expeditiously, though Joint Secretary ( Admn.) put forward some argument in this regard yet chairman expressed his deep concern to reconsider the issue.
The Chairman also acceded to our request to fix a meeting with the Assn for discussing threadbare all outstanding issues at length towards the end of this month.
In view of these positive developments, at the end of today’s dharna at 5.00 p.m it was decided by both the Assns to defer the call for mass Casual Leave on 27.05.2011, and to review the position after the next meeting with the Chairman. The agitation, however has not been withdrawn, and will be revived on the very first indications that our demands are not getting deserving attention. The two Associations expressed their willingness to conglomerate with other recognised cadre Associations of Gr.'C' & Gr.'D' for the proposed Parliament Rally in the 'Badal Session' of the Parliament.
No comments:
Post a Comment