Freezing of DA will hit heavily on the economic status of the employees of Postal department- SG FNPO Sent letter to Minister of Communication, Cabinet Secretary& Chairman Postal Services Board.
To,
Sri Ravishankar Prasad
Hon’ble Minister of Communication
Government of India
New Delhi
Respected Sir,
With all humility, being the Secretary General of FNPO representing the Postal employees, it is my bounden duty to bring to your kind attention about the genuine feelings and hardships of the Postal fraternity. Therefore I request the Hon’ble minister for his kind attention and request for his intervention for needful action.
The Postal service has been enlisted as Essential Service. The country is facing the crisis which is not witnessed such crisis in the recent past. The Pandemic threatened the lives of the people and the Postal officials are no exception to it. But the Postal staff across the country rose to the occasion and working day and night for the service of the customers and the needy. The staff are following the appeal of the Hon’ble Minister and the Government of India and rendering the service. The staff is involved in payment of social security pensions at the door step of the needy, delivery food packets; food grains more importantly the delivery of medicines and Medical equipments. There is no transport in the country. No Hotels are available in any corner of the country. The Post offices are located in the interior parts of the country and the staff with no transport, arranging their own transport incurring huge expenditure has attended offices many a times without even food. The staff with minimum preventive materials, putting their lives at risk rendered and rendering service. I am grief ridden to inform that many of our staff is infected during the course of their duty and one of the officials is succumbed.
The real shock to the Postal staff is that the decision of the Government of India freezing the DA payable from Jan 2020 to Jan 2021. As such the Postal staff is deprived of three installments of DA which will be a major financial loss to the employees. The postal staff is rendering yeoman service during this Pandemic. In this hour of crisis the Postal staff voluntarily contributed one day salary to the Prime Minister’s Cares Fund. But the staff never expected that the government deprives the DA to them. Considering the fact that the Postal staff is rendering service to the door step of the needy and customers though there is perceptible threat to their lives, the Government might have excluded postal employees from this order. But to our dismay we are also not spared.
In this department fifty percent of the staff is GDS. They are who reaching the nooks and corners of the country. The salary that is being paid to them is very meager. The salary slabs are in three stages ie Rs10000/, Rs12000/ and Rs 14500/. Majority of the GDS are drawing salary at the stage of Rs10000/ only. Unfortunately GDS are not eligible for any social security benefits that the respective state Governments are extending. They are having the tag of Central government employees but in real sense it is not so. Therefore the employee structure of Postal department is quiet different compared to any other department. The department renders all the banking services but still the facilities the Bank officials are getting is not available to the postal fraternity. Provided the economic conditions, the GDS pay structure and the service being rendered by the officials, my federation is of the humble opinion that the Postal Staff should have been excluded from the decision of Freezing of DA.
I hereby convey that the Freezing of DA will hit heavily on the economic status of the employees of Postal department. The conditions of the GDS will be precarious if the little hike in terms of DA is snatched from them.
This freezing of DA will have far reaching impact on the retirement benefits of the officials who are going to retire during this period.
Further in the interest of the economy also it may not be correct. The world is reeling under great recession. India is no exception to it. The economists are of the firm opinion that spending is the only way out to ease out this recession. Already the buying power of the employees are crippled, if this DA freezing is implemented the employees will lose the buying power. This will have far reaching impact on the economy in the long run. Even in the larger interest of the economy it may not be correct to curb the buying power of the employees.
The Postal employees have responded to all the challenges and rendered the service whatsoever the precarious conditions. The employees followed the call of the Hon’ble Minister and rendering service day and night. In fact my federation is grateful to the minister as the Minister has profoundly acknowledged the service of the Postal staff through various tweets and interviews to electronic and print media.
Now on behalf of my federation I request the Hon’ble Minister to kindly intervene and take up the matter with the PMO, so that the Employees of Postal department may be excluded from the order of the Government of India of Freezing DA.
I request the Hon’ble Minister to consider all facts and kindly cause favorable action.
Thank You Sir,
Yours faithfully,
B.Shivakumar.
Secretary General.
Copy to.
The Cabinet Secretary, Government of India, Cabinet Secretariat,
Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi .
Chairman Postal Services Board Dak Bhawan, sansad Marg,
New Delhi
