AIPEU P3 CHQ

RESOLUTIUON ADOPTED BY THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE CONFEDERATION OF CENTRAL GOVT. EMPLOYEES AND WORKERS IN ITS MEETING HELD AT MUMBAI ON IST DECEMBER, 2010.

RESOLUTION

The National Council Meeting of the Confederation of Central Government Employees & Workers held at Mumbai on 1st December 2010 congratulates the BSNL employees who are on strike for 3 days from 1st December to 3rd December 2010 to object to the attitude of the Government of India towards the BSNL and its concerted efforts to make it a sick unit to pave way for the private telecom providers to amass the spoils and maximize their profit.

The Government has not allowed to either make investment for expansion of the services of the BSNL or allowed it to purchase technology or materials to compete with other service providers in the market, with the result the profit of the public sector undertaking has been dwindling over the years. The Government's present move to disinvest 30% of its shares and reduce the workforce through a V R Scheme is with an ulterior motive of winding up the BSNL ultimately. The employees are therefore on struggle to save this Public Sector Enterprise and the strike is organized with a patriotic fervour to ensure the assets created with the public money is not transferred to private hands. The saddest part of the whole episode is that the Telecom Ministry has been handled for many years by corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, which has resulted in the biggest scam in the post independent era emanating from the telecom sector.

The National Council has called upon the Central Govt. employees throughout the country to extend their wholehearted co-operation and solidarity to the striking BSNL Employees and appeal them to popularize the issues raised by the striking workers amongst the rank and file of the membership of Central Govt. employees organizations and demand the Govt. to desist from the move to disinvest BSNL shares and allow the BSNL management to immediately undertake steps to purchase the requisite material and technology to enable BSNL to widen its business.

S.K. Vyas.
President

INDIA POST'S GADGETS TO STREAMLINE

NREGA PAYMENT

NEW DELHI: India Post will provide gadgets such as biometric fingerprint scanners, magnetic strip readers and thermal printers to its 1,30,000 rural offices to smoothen the process of verification and payment under the national rural employment guarantee scheme .

It has charted out an ambitious rural information technology (IT) plan that will make the wage disbursement under the scheme paperless, said an official with the department who asked not to be named. Although NREGA is administered by the ministry of rural development, payments under the UPA government's flagship job safety programme are routed through the postal network and bank branches. The postal department services more than half of the wage earners under the scheme in most states of the country.

The government has allocated Rs 40,100 crore for NREGA in 2010-11. It is estimated that the rural development ministry will be able to utilize only about Rs 35,000 crore in the current year. A total of 179,43,189 families have been provided employment under the scheme till June 30 this year.

The devices offered to the post offices will have an in-built global positioning system (GPS) to determine the frequency of the postal staff's visits to the villages, which will ensure accountability on the part of the branch post masters. This will also help the department map its delivery territory.

The move will help the hugely popular scheme to check leakage of funds owing to fake attendance under the scheme.
In some states of North East, it was found that funds were transferred under the scheme to even doctors and engineers. In Uttar Pradesh alone the leakage is estimated at . 850 crore annually.

The department has invited participation of private players in this regard. The IT revamp, which will happen in phases, is expected to be completed in two years, said an official with the ministry of communications and information technology.

To ensure that the process is made hassle-free, the devices will have portable web cameras with enabling features such as bluetooth and wifi access for seamless transfer of data that may be required under the verification process for accounts.

Transactions under the scheme will happen only when the wage earner's biometric information is matched with data stored in the department's electronic database.

"Our devices will be compliant with standards issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India," said YP Rai, deputy director general (rural business) at India Post.

As network availability in most rural areas is inconsistent, the devices will have facility to function both online and offline. To address the problem of inadequate power supply, the devises will have an in-built battery with solar chargers.