Pension to RRB employees updates -7

AIRRBEA team with the following leaders could meet Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Hon’ble President of India on 4th Sept, 2012.

1)      Dilip Kumar Mukherjee, Secretary General, AIRRBEA

2)      A. Sayeed Khan, Organizing Secretary, AIRRBEA

3)      Banwari Lal, Vice President, AIRRBEA

We submitted a memorandum to Hon’ble President of India for directing the Ministry of Finance for issuance of immediate order in favour of pension to RRB staff without any disparity on the plea of “profit & loss”. Copy of this memorandum is being sent to you all. The Hon’ble President of India has gone through the memorandum and assured us to take appropriate action.

Our discussion with Govt. Officials

We had been to Delhi on 2nd Sept, 2012. On 3rd Sept, 2012 we could meet the following personnel and discussed our issues.

1)      Shri Sunil Soni, Additional Secretary, F.S. GOI 

2)      Shri Sandeep Kumar, Director, F.S. GOI

We discussed the following issues with Shri Sandeep Kumar, Director, F.S. GOI.

1)   RRB Pension Scheme

We have drawn the attention of Shri Kumar to the judgment dt. 23rd, August, 2012 of the Division Bench of Hon’ble Rajasthan High Court where it has been clearly mentioned that:-

i) “When as per the dictum of the Hon'bie Supreme Court, the appellant, while deciding on the pay structure of the employees of the RRBs is under obligation to maintain reasonable parity with the pay structure of the employees of the Nationalized Commercial Banks in manner and effect, there appears no reason as to why the same principles would not apply to the matter of pensionary benefits too. Rather, maintaining of such parity in regard to the pensionary benefits appears necessary as an integral part of the overall structure relating to the pay, allowances and other benefits”.

ii)“It is necessary that the requirements of the order as passed by the learned Single Judge, as affirmed by us, are carried out without any further delay for which, we grant three months time as an outer limit.” 

Shri Kumar accepted the fact that GOI is to issue the order on pension scheme in line with Banking Industry by 23rd November, 2012 positively as per court order though he did not mention anything about the scheme in line with 1993 scheme in Banking Industry since there was no provision for “Employees share” in the pension scheme 1993. Shri Kumar has also informed us that:-

GOI has sent some queries to NABARD, the reply of which is yet to be received.  GOI thinks that for the formation of Expert Committee, no Govt. approval is required. NABARD can form such committee, if required or otherwise can take the help from IBA and others.

We also proposed that the accumulated loss of the respective RRB may be set off with “Share Capital Deposit Account” of the same RRB.  Shri Kumar informed us that probably NABARD has sent such proposal to GOI, copy of which is not traced out at the Govt. level. So, NABARD may be asked to send copy of the letter in this regard to GOI.

2)   H.R. Policy

We requested Shri Kumar that:-

i)  To honour the Govt. order dt. 12.09.2008 on manpower planning in RRBs till this order is replaced by a new order to be issued by GOI. NABARD has issued such letter in this regard to GOI favouring the same proposal as learnt by Shri Sandeep Kumar but GOI has not received.  So GOI is waiting for the copy of the original letter sent by NABARD.

ii) To go by the same principle adopted by GOI in case of Public Sector Bank Officers in the area of relaxing the years of service to get oneself eligible for the promotional post. Shri Kumar informed us that GOI in its letter dt. 24.07.2012 requested NABARD to send their opinion and GOI has not yet received the reply.

3)   H. R. Committee

We submitted the gist of our representation placed before H.R. Committee at Kolkata on 1st Sept, 2012 copy of which has already been sent to all our units. We have emphatically informed Shri Kumar that the H.R. Committee in its reference and queries has ignored the following two areas:-

i) There are about 16,000 part-time workers in the RRBs working more than 10 years. As per Supreme Court decision, they should be observed /converted in /to the vacancies of “Regular Office Attendant” as already done by some Public Sector Banks.

ii)  A good part of the labour & time put by the RRB staff for the Govt. sponsored schemes must be taken care by the H.R. Committee since this is a stern reality. 

Shri Kumar, being an invitee member of the H.R. Committee was kind enough to take note of it.

4)   Amalgamation 

We came to learn from the office that GOI is not going to issue any Notification on amalgamation in the month of September, 2012. We have unofficially learnt that some Notifications may be issued on 1st or 2nd October, 2012 in the six States already approved by F.M. GOI.