Sunday 24 July 2016

22/07/2016

India Post plans 50 payments bank branches by May
India Post expects to start the first 50 branches of its payments bank by May 2017, seeking to widen financial inclusion in the country.

As per the current plan, India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) - as it has been termed will eventually have 650 branches across the country. While the first set of branches will open by May, the remaining will start operations by September 2017, a top official of the Department of Posts said. The department hopes to submit a final proposal to the Reserve Bank of India by February, ahead of the March 2017 deadline, after it has the required management and technology in place, SK Sinha, secretary, Department of Posts, told ET. The RBI gave in-principle approval to 11 applicants in August last year, including the Department of Posts, Aditya Birla Nuvo, Airtel M Commerce Services, Fino PayTech, National Securities Depository, Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra and Vodafone m-pesa, for setting up payments banks. Three of the 11 entities have decided to back out, citing unviability. India Post, with a network of about 155,000 post offices, will hire almost 2,000 people for the payments bank operations. "There will be nine board members, five from outside and four internal people from the department, including the CEO," said Sinha.

The department is contemplating whether it can form its own search and selection committee to appoint a CEO or rely on the standard procedure followed by public sector banks for top-level appointments. The department has written to state-owned banks seeking nominations. Sinha said the State Bank of India has responded with some names. "For the next rung of leadership such as the chief financial officer, chief operating officer and chief technology officer, we are forming an internal committee," he said. The government has approved Rs 400 crore equity and Rs 400 crore grant for IPPB. Alibaba-backed Paytm is the other or payments frontrunner for payments banks in India and has drawn up a largely branchless model. Sinha said that India Post is looking at catering to the unbanked population of the country with the idea of opening one branch in almost every district of the country. "Most of the other players may not be even thin king of the areas that we want to service," said Sinha. The plan is to have most of the banking features such as money transfer and internet banking, apart from offering credit (in partnership with other banks or institutions), along with financial products such as mutual funds. Sinha is betting big on the government's direct benefits transfer scheme to drive transactions, with welfare payments being deposited in the bank accounts of consumers.
While the first set of branches will open by May, the remaining will start operations by September 2017, a top official of the Department of Posts said


 
21/07/2016

Questions raised in Parliament regarding 7th CPC Notification and Fitment Factor
7th Central Pay Commission recommendations
The Government has decided to implement the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission relating to pay, pension and related issues. The requisite notifications are being issued shortly.
The increase in pay as recommended by the 7th Central Pay commission is based on the detailed deliberations by the Commission keeping in view all relevant factors having a bearing upon the prevailing circumstances
Employee Associations of Central Government had given a call for strike with effect from 11.07.2016 which has since been deferred. However, the Government is responsive to the concerns of the Employees’ Association and it would be the endeavour of the Government to ensure that the eventuality of a strike does not arise.
In view of the multiplication factor having been accepted based on the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay commission, no such proposal is under consideration of the Government, at present.
This was stated by the Minister of Finance Shri.Arun Jaitley in a written reply to a question by the Shri Neeraj Shekhar in the Rajya Sabha on 19.7.2016

 






Press Information Bureau
Government Of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
(20-July, 2016 14:59 IST )
 21/07/2016
Revision of Civil Services recruitment system

An Expert Committee has been constituted by Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) under the chairmanship of Shri B. S. Baswan to comprehensively examine the various issues, raised from time to time regarding the Civil Service Examination, with respect to the eligibility, syllabus, scheme and pattern of the Examination vide notice dated 12.8.2015. The committee has been given extension of time till August 2016 to submit its report.

Imparting training to the officers is a continuous process. The course content of the training is modified regularly as per the requirement.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri Ajay Nishad in the Lok Sabha today.
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KSD/NK/PK/KM/RS
(Release ID :147325)

20-July-2016  
Reservation for SC/ST and OBC

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        


Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
20-July-2016 15:01 IST
Reservation for SC/ST and OBC
Article 16(4) of the Constitution enables provision of reservation to Backward Class of citizens, who are not adequately represented in the State. Reservation is provided to Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) through executive instructions issued from time to time, which has force of law, as held by the Supreme Court in Indira Sawhney case.
As per extant instructions, reservation is provided to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes at the rate of 15%, 7.5% and 27%, respectively, in case of direct recruitment on all-India basis by open competition. In case of direct recruitment on all-India basis otherwise than by open competition, the percentage fixed is 16.66%, 7.5% and 25.84%, respectively.
As per information received from 71 Ministries/Departments, the representation of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in the posts and services under the Central Government as on 01.01.2014 is 17.35%, 8.38% and 19.28%, respectively.
While the representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is as per the prescribed percentage, the representation of Other Backward Classes is less than the prescribed percentage due to the following reasons:-

(i) Reservation for Other Backward Classes started only from the year 1993.

(ii) OBC candidates who are appointed upto 1993, that is before introduction of reservation for OBCs, are not included for counting their representation;

(iii) There is generally a time gap between occurrence of vacancies and filling up such vacancies, as recruitment is a time consuming process.
Based on recommendations of a Committee headed by the Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, time bound action plan for filling up backlog reserved vacancies has been intimated to all concerned Departments/Ministries on 20.11.2014 for filling up such vacancies by August 2016. The Action Plan includes study of reasons for non-filling of backlog reserved vacancies, review of prescribed standards, if required; conducting Special Recruitment Drive and conducting pre-recruitment training programmes.
This was stated by the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr. Jitendra Singh in a written reply to a question by Shri Laxmi Narayan Yadav and Shri Harishchandra Chavan in the Lok Sabha today.
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20/07/2016

Rules framed: Civil servants not allowed to criticise govt on social media  Babus will need to be careful what they say, or draw, on social media.
The Centre on Tuesday proposed changes to the rulebook to explicitly treat criticism of government policies on social media as a violation of conduct rules. And the threat of disciplinary action is not limited to the written word. It includes caricatures that are uncharitable to the government too.
The proposal comes weeks after an IAS officer Ajay Gangwar ‘liked’ a Facebook post critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and praised first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
“Let me know the mistakes that Nehru should not have committed...Is it his mistake that he prevented all of us from becoming Hindu Talibani Rashtra in 1947?...” he wrote in the post, an oblique rebuttal to continuing attacks on Nehru by BJP leaders.
Gangwar, who was Barwani collector, was transferred to the secretariat in Bhopal by the BJP’s Madhya Pradesh government and told to give an explanation.
Government officials have always been barred from criticising government policy or making statements that embarrass the Centre’s relations with a state government or a foreign country.
But the provision only spoke about criticism made in a radio broadcast, public media (such as television) or documents. Social media was not clearly covered.
The change now fixes this gap.
“The member of service shall also not make any such statement on television, social media or any other communication application,” the draft rule, sent by the Centre’s department of personnel & training to state governments for their views, said. It will be applicable to anonymous and pseudonymous posts by officials too.
The restriction, however, is not unique to India.
Back in 2011, a British civil servant, identified at the end of a 7-month investigation, was dismissed for mocking ministers through an anonymous Twitter account. Next year, a Sergeant in the US Marines was sacked for a Facebook post critical of US President Barack Obama. In 2013, an immigration officer lost her job in Australia for posting tweets critical of the country’s asylum policy. She too had tweeted from an anonymous account but it didn’t help.
In India, governments and courts have taken a more liberal view of officials criticising its policy.
A senior IAS officer serving in the central government who criticised the Election Commission in 2005 was only sent back to his cadre, West Bengal, in 2005. And the Supreme Court shielded another officer – now fertilizer secretary VS Pandey -- from penalties in 2014 for remarks against corruption in the government in his petition.
A government source said the existing rules were primarily addressed at criticism made by officials in traditional television and print media, not the new media. “The change primarily seeks to clarify the situation and not leave any scope for misinterpretation,” he said.
For now, the changes are being made to the conduct rules for the three All India Services – Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and Indian Forest Service.
Once the government notifies the changes after reviewing suggestions from the state governments, similar changes will be made to a separate set of the conduct rules applicable for other employees to

Modi government to infuse Rs 22,915 crore capital in 13 Public Sector Banks in FY17


The Narendra Modi government has allocated Rs 22,915 crore to meet the capitalization needs of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) in the current fiscal.

The Narendra Modi government has allocated Rs 22,915 crore to meet the capitalization needs of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) in the current fiscal. This is in line with its Indradhanush initiative, aimed at restoring banking sector health.
The maximum capital infusion will be for State Bank of India (SBI) at Rs 7,575 crore and the least for Allahabad Bank at Rs 44 crore. A total of 13 PSBs will be part of this capital infusion drive.
According to a Ministry of Finance release, the capital infusion is based on “needs as assessed from the CAGR of credit growth for the last five years, banks’ own projections of credit growth and an objective assessment of the potential for growth of each PSB.”
Allocation break-up as released by Ministry of Finance

“75% of the amount collected for each bank is being released now to provide liquidity support for lending operations as also to enable banks to raise funds from the market,” said the Ministry release.
The balance amount will be released later. “This is linked to performance, with particular reference to greater efficiency, growth of both credit and deposits and reduction in the cost of operations,” the release added.

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