“Forward ever, backward never: onwards with Breaking Through”
02/03/2016

After Amazon, Flipkart and Naaptol tie up with Postal Dept.

The postal department is gaining ground as a popular e-commerce delivery platform with more online retailers tying up with it to deliver parcels. From March, post offices will start delivering orders of major players like Flipkart and Naaptol too.
At present, the department has tied up with 143 e-commerce players, the major one being Amazon, for delivery of articles in Tamil Nadu. Of these, nearly 100 are from Chennai. Nearly 5,500 products ordered online either through prepaid or cash-on-delivery modes are being delivered daily.
“We are now concentrating on faster delivery of articles on the same day and monitoring complaints for better delivery service,” said J.T. Venkateswarulu, Postmaster general (mails and business development) said.
The articles received at Ekkaduthangal warehouse and St.Thomas Mount Speed Post centre are despatched in three days. “Nearly 98 per cent of the products are now delivered directly on the same day to customers in the city. Instead of sending them through 65 delivery post offices in the city, these products are directly despatched from St. Thomas Mount. Flipkart is already delivering a few articles through post offices on a trial basis. It will start full-fledged operations in Chennai from March,” Mr.Venkateswarulu said.
Besides small and medium retailers, institutions like Tamil Nadu Open University also use the service. The department earned Rs.8.7 crore through e-commerce initiatives last year. Chennai contributes to nearly 50 per cent of the revenue. Of the Rs.370 crore revenue targeted this year (January to December), post offices plan to earn Rs.15 crore through e-commerce in the State, officials said. “We are expecting business to increase by nearly Rs.2.5 crore a year once Flipkart and Naaptol start providing products for delivery,” he added.
The department has also introduced a text message service where customers will be informed of product delivery by the postal staff members. Moreover, State Bank of India will start using speed post services of post offices to deliver debit cards and cheque books from March, officials added.

Source: The Hindu

No improvement in the yesterday meeting with Central Govt. All the Central Govt. Employees will go on strike from 11.04.2016 as already decided. Details of the meeting will be posted in our web shortly.

Government rejected demand for raising of bonus payment ceiling to central Government Employees
F.No.7/4/2014-E-III(A)
Government of India
Ministry of Expenditure
(E-IIIA Branch)
North Block, New Delhi
Dated the 25th Feb, 2016
To,
Sh.Shiva Gopal Mishra
Secretary (Staff-side)
Joint Consultative Machinery(JCM)
13-C, Ferozshah Road,
New Delhi-110001.

Subject: Raising of bonus payment ceiling to Central Government employees.
Sir,
 I am directed to refer to your L.No. NC-JCM-2015-S.C dated 11.1.2016 on the subject mentioned above and to say that the issue raised therein has been considered.

2. At the outset, till now there has not been a complete parity between Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and the bonus for Central Government employees in regard to the two different ceilings, one relating to the calculation and the other relating to eligibility. While the calculation ceiling has been the same, the eligibility ceiling has been different and even the revised eligibility ceiling of Rs. 21,000 under the amended Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 is not higher than that in case of the Central Government employees where all non-gazetted employees are eligible for bonus. This being so, a complete parity for the purpose of calculation ceiling of Rs. 7000 p.m., that too, from 1.1.2014, is not justifiable.

3. Most importantly, the 7th Central Pay Commission, which has gone into the  issue of bonus scheme in detail in respepct of the Central Government employees, has felt that instead of bonus, there should be introduced the Performance related Pay (PRP) for all categories of Government employees and this PRP should subsume the existing bonus scheme. 

The Commission has further recommended that since there would be a time log in implementing the PRP, the existing scheme should be reviewed and linked with increased profitability/productivity under the well-defined parameters. The recommendations of the Commission are separately being examined and an appropriate view would be taken as and when the Government decision on the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission is  known. Till such time, therefore, it may not be possible to revisit the issue of  calculation ceiling in case of Central Government employees for the purpose of PLB/ad-hoc bonus.
4. This has the approval of the Finance Secretary
Yours Sincerely,
(Ashok Kumar)
Under Secretary to the Gpovt of India

Ph.23095650