DACP implemented for paramilitary doctors

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has fully implemented the Dynamic Assured Career Progression (DACP) scheme for doctors of the central armed police forces with effect from October 29, 2008, after court orders.

It implies time-bound promotion and entry to new pay scales.

After a cabinet approval in 2008, the DACP was ordered to be implemented for all medical and dental doctors serving under all departments and ministries of the central government.

The time-bound pay progression was to be till the grade pay of Rs. 10,000 as applicable to joint secretary to the union government.

While all departments implemented the scheme smoothly, the MHA and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) refused to for their uniformed combatised doctors on the pretext that it would lead to hierarchical problems.

There was also resistance from the senior officers at the army headquarters, who cited similar problems and opined that the doctors should not be paid more than the army officers of same rank.

Later, the Andhra Pradesh high court directed the MHA to implement the scheme for paramilitary doctors; and the Chandigarh bench of Ar med Forces Tribunal (AFT) comprising justice Ghanshyam Prashad and lieutenant general HS Panag (retd) directed the MoD to implement it for Army Medical Corps (AMC) doctors.

The Supreme Court, later, upheld the AFT decision. While the MHA implemented the scheme promptly for paramilitary doctors, it did so only with effect from July 30, 2013.

However, now it has issued a circular based on the Andhra Pradesh high court judgment and made the scheme applicable from 2008, from the date it was implemented for all other government doctors.

The MoD, however, in spite of the Supreme Court decision, is yet to implement the DACP for military doctors; and the AFT now has directed the joint secretary concerned to be present in court with a detailed affidavit, in case the orders are not carried out.

 

(Source- Bhartesh Singh Thakur, Hindustan Times  Chandigarh, May 26, 2014)

SHRI NARENDRA MODI SWEARING IN AS PM AND Allocation of Ministry/Portfolio to PM Modi & other Ministers

SHRI NARENDRA MODI SWEARING IN AS PM

 

ALLOCATION OF PORTFOLIOS

 

Government of India

President's Secretariat

27-May-2014 09:31 IST

PRESS COMMUNIQUE

The President of India, as advised by the Prime Minister, has directed the allocation of portfolios among the following members of the Union Council of Ministers :-

1.

Shri Narendra Modi Prime Minister

Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Department of Atomic Energy  Department of Space All important policy issues and all other portfolios not allocated to any Minister

CABINET MINISTERS

1.	Shri Raj Nath Singh	Home Affairs
2.	Smt. Sushma Swaraj	External Affairs Overseas Indian Affairs
3.	Shri Arun Jaitley	Finance Corporate Affairs Defence
4.	Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu	Urban Development Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Parliamentary Affairs
5.	Shri Nitin Jairam Gadkari	Road Transport and Highways Shipping
6.	Shri D.V. Sadananda Gowda	Railways
7.	Sushri Uma Bharati	Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation
8.	Dr. Najma A. Heptulla	Minority Affairs
9.	Shri Gopinathrao Munde	Rural Development Panchayati Raj Drinking Water and Sanitation
10.	Shri Ramvilas Paswan	Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
11.	Shri Kalraj Mishra	Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
12.	Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi	Women and Child Development
13.	Shri Ananthkumar	Chemicals and Fertilizers
14.	Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad	Communications and Information Technology Law and Justice
15.	Shri Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati	Civil Aviation
16.	Shri Anant Geete	Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises
17.	Smt. Harsimrat Kaur Badal	Food Processing Industries
18.	Shri Narendra Singh Tomar	Mines Steel Labour and Employment
19.	Shri Jual Oram	Tribal Affairs
20.	Shri Radha Mohan Singh	Agriculture
21.	Shri Thaawar Chand Gehlot	Social Justice and Empowerment
22.	Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani	Human Resource Development
23.	Dr. Harsh Vardhan	Health and Family Welfare

MINISTERS OF STATE

1.	General V.K. Singh	Development of North Eastern Region (Independent Charge) External Affairs Overseas Indian Affairs
2.	Shri Inderjit Singh Rao	Planning (Independent Charge) Statistics and Programme Implementation (Independent Charge) Defence
3.	Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar	Textiles (Independent Charge) Parliamentary Affairs Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation
4.	Shri Shripad Yesso Naik	Culture (Independent Charge) Tourism (Independent Charge)
5.	Shri Dharmendra Pradhan	Petroleum and Natural Gas (Independent Charge)
6.	Shri Sarbananda Sonowal	Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs and Sports (Independent Charge)
7.	Shri Prakash Javadekar	Information and Broadcasting (Independent Charge) Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Independent Charge) Parliamentary Affairs
8.	Shri Piyush Goyal	Power (Independent  Charge) Coal (Independent Charge) New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge)
9.	Dr. Jitendra Singh	Science and Technology (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences (Independent Charge) Prime Minister Office Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions Department of Atomic Energy Department of Space
10.	Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman	Commerce and Industry (Independent Charge) Finance Corporate Affairs
11.	Shri G.M. Siddeshwara	Civil Aviation
12.	Shri Manoj Sinha	Railways
13.	Shri Nihalchand	Chemicals and Fertilizers
14.	Shri Upendra Kushwaha	Rural Development Panchayati Raj Drinking Water and Sanitation
15.	Shri Radhakrishnan P	Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises
16.	Shri Kiren Rijiju	Home Affairs
17.	Shri Krishan Pal	Road Transport and Highways Shipping
18.	Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Balyan	Agriculture Food Processing Industries
19.	Shri Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava	Tribal Affairs
20.	Shri Raosaheb Dadarao Danve	Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
21.	Shri Vishnu Deo Sai	Mines Steel Labour and Employment
22.	Shri Sudarshan Bhagat	Social Justice and Empowerment

Source: PIB

(Source-Sanjhamorcha)

(Source-Indian Military benefits blog)

OROP Status Report by Lt Gen Raj Kadyan

General 1.      Politicians speaking in the Parliament add a lot of dressing to the substance of what they say. The Finance Minister did the same on 14.02.2014 while speaking on OROP. He first floridly announced that the gap between pre-2006 and post-2006 retirees for all ranks needs to be closed. Later, coming to the gist he had stated that the government has now decided to walk the last mile and implement the scheme of One Rank One Pension for all Armed Forces personnel and their dependents. 2.    In the follow-up meeting held on 26.02.2014 the Defence Minister, who was in chair, had reiterated the following definition of OROP:        "OROP implies that uniform pension be paid to the Armed Forces personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service irrespective of their date of retirement and any future enhancement in the rates of pension to be automatically passed on to the past pensioners. This implies bridging the gap between the rate of pension of the current pensioners and the past pensioners, and also future enhancements in the rate of pension to be automatically passed on to the past pensioners." 3.   This definition accords with what the IESM has been projecting (except we had not used the term 'uniform pension'). This was also the definition given by the Rajya Sabha Committee  on Petitions that submitted its report on 19.12.2011. 4.    The Services prepared a draft government letter in April giving out detailed modalities of OROP. The draft still remains under discussion. Meetings of Stake Holders 5.      In a subsequent meeting held on 22.04.2014, the Defence Minister constituted a committee to work out the modalities and submit its report within three weeks. (It is learnt that the Minister wanted the report much faster but the PCDA expressed inability to do it in lesser time frame). 6.    The Committee has had five sittings starting with the first meeting on 02.05.2014. Some of these were chaired by the RRM.  The PCDA has been consistently displaying an obstructionist approach and has been the main stumbling block. He has been giving his own interpretation to various aspects of OROP. Some of these, including the counter by the Services are given in following paras. 7.    Definition of OROP.   According to PCDA, definition of OROP should be drawn from the Finance Minister's budget 2014-15 speech vide which the gap between pre-2006 retirees and post-2006 retirees for all ranks needs to be closed. Here he is quoting the first part of the FMs speech while conveniently ignoring the second part as given in Para 1 above. The Service representatives attending the meetings have pointed this out in the meeting and have also drawn attention to the definition given by the Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions. 8.      Interpretation of the Term 'Uniform Pension'.  The PCDA has opined that 'Uniform' pension means pension under a uniform pay/pension structure i.e. under the same pay scales with same qualifying service & pension calculation formula. According to him it need not necessarily lead to same pension for all the retirees (past & present) in the same rank and same qualifying service because of the annual increments being given to the serving personnel. The Services have of course countered saying uniform pension means one/same/equal/identical pension. 9.      Length of Service.  The PCDA has further held that the 'length of service' in the OROP definition is to be treated as the number of years of service put in by the pensioner in the rank last held. Alternatively, according to the PCDA, if total qualifying service is to be treated for the purpose of OROP then qualitative aspects relating to length of service in terms of number of years rendered in each rank the service person has served before the retirement in the last rank held, needs to be taken cognizance of. This they concede will be difficult to implement in practice. The counter by the Services is that length of service and qualifying service are synonymous as given in Rule 19 of Pension Regulations 2008 as also in the MoD letter dated 17.01.2013. 10.   Bridging the Gap.    The PCDA has further held that while bridging the gap between the pre-2006 and post-2006 pensioners the benefits of improved service conditions (viz. method of faster promotion applicable to the current personnel) should not be extended to past pensioners. This in fact runs against the concept of automatically passing on future enhancement to past pensioners, which is intrinsic to the definition of OROP. The Services have pointed this out, also underscoring the fact that the benefit of MSP and Grade Pay for calculation of pension has already been extended to past pensioners. The Services have further suggested that there should be a periodic review of OROP say on yearly basis, wherein any anomaly can be addressed. Conclusion 11.    For reasons best known to them the outgoing government announced OROP too late and could not get it implemented during their tenure. With their term nearing the end, the bureaucratic hierarchy reportedly stopped being responsive to political orders. The dunderheaded obduracy of some financial bureaucrats can delay it for some time but cannot stop OROP. It is reiterated that OROP has come about after a long effort of over three decades. While some delay in its implementation is understandable, any hint of dilution will be resisted and will result in renewal of the struggle by The IESM (Source-V Raju blog)