Tag: employees

Primary Agri Cooperative Societies to be upgraded by Bengal Govt

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The around 2,600 Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS), which are the main deposit mobilising institutions in rural areas, are being upgraded by the State Government by computerising them and connecting them to core banking solution of cooperative banks.

This is meant to further extend banking service to the rural populace in the State, to places which lack proper banks. Thus a PACS would become a customer service point for banking facilities.

The work to upgrade 1,133 PACS to banks has already been initiated. The target for completing the upgrading of all the PACS has been set as the end of financial year 2019-20. Upgrading all PACS would ensure that people in every part of the State can avail banking facilities.

The State Level Monitoring Committee for Cooperative Sector, a high-powered committee set up last January to look into the matter of extending banking facilities to more rural areas, has suggested the above as well as a series of other measures to improve the cooperative sector, which have been accepted by the Bengal Government.

It has recommended that district and state cooperative banks open bank branches in the gram panchayats with no banking facilities. Steps have already been taken to install micro-ATMs in all the PACSs.

The panel has proposed the establishment of 2,000 farm machinery hubs through the best-performing PACS. This has also been accepted by the Government. During 2018-19, 1,000 such hubs will be established; the remaining will be taken up during the 2019-20 fiscal.

Citing the current practice of giving interest subsidy to farmers for short-term crop loans from cooperatives, the committee has suggested that the same facility should be provided for long-term loans as well.

The State Government has also decided to give ad hoc grant to all employees of cooperatives and the amount of the grant is to be raised from Rs 1,000 per to Rs 2,000 per month.

The cooperative employees will also be brought under the Swasthya Sathi scheme of the State Government.

The State Government has also taken necessary steps so that the audit of all cooperative bodies is carried out and corrective measures, if needed, are taken immediately.

Source: Millennium Post

15% DA for state government employees from Jan 2018: CM

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Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced 15 per cent hike in dearness allowance of state government employees from next January. The increased DA for over 1.1 million employees would cost the exchequer about Rs 4,500 crore. She also said that all the arrears would be cleared in phases by end of 2019.

She also gave assurances on bridging the DA gap between Central and state government employees by 2019. She added: “There will be a hike in DA by 15 percent from January 1 next year. It will be applicable for all state government employees including the teaching and non-teaching staff.”

Giving a breakup of the expense that the state government will bear for increasing the DA, she said: “There will be an additional expense of Rs 4,500 crore of the state government for increasing the DA. In the past six years till January 1 in 2017, this government has increased the DA from 35 percent to 50 percent in six phases despite the financial crisis and it has led to an increase of expense by Rs 27,900 crore. Now, the amount will go up to Rs 32,400 crore as the total expense.”

The CM further stated: “One has to keep in mind that the Centre did not give the money to the state government. I am writing to the Centre asking it to give us the money that is needed to increase the DA along with them. Let them plan a policy. Now, there is GST which is a one-tax formula.”

She added that in the past six years her government has cleared a debt of Rs 1.79 lakh crore — a legacy left behind by the erstwhile CPI(M) government. “Moreover, this year we have to give Rs 45,000 crore and it will go up to Rs 47,000 crore next year,” she said adding that she made it possible to give the DA in such a situation just because she is always keen on small savings.

Stating that her government would have done much more if the Left Front government had not left behind the legacy of such a huge debt, she said: “Earlier, state government employees had to think whether they would get their salaries and pensions on the first day of every month or not. But now, they don’t have to worry as salary gets credited to their respective accounts on the first day of the month.”

She criticised the erstwhile Left Front government for not addressing the DA issue during their 34-year-long rule.

 

সরকারি কর্মচারীদের ১৫ শতাংশ ডিএ ঘোষণা করলেন মুখ্যমন্ত্রী

পুজোর মুখে রাজ্য সরকারের কর্মচারীদের জন্য সুখবর। বকেয়া ১৫ শতাংশ ডিএ পাবেন কর্মীরা। বৃহস্পতিবার নজরুল মঞ্চে কর্মচারীদের সম্মেলনে ঘোষণা করেন মুখ্যমন্ত্রী মমতা বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়। আগামী বছরের পয়লা জানুয়ারি থেকে মিলবে এই বকেয়া মহার্ঘ ভাতা।

তিনি জানিয়েছেন ২০১৯-এর মধ্যে ধাপে ধাপে সমস্ত বকেয়া মহার্ঘ ভাতা মিটিয়ে দেওয়া হবে। ২০১৮ সালের পয়লা জানুয়ারি ১৫ শতাংশ মহার্ঘ ভাতা পাবেন রাজ্য সরকারের কর্মীরা। ৯ মাসের ব্যবধানে ফের রাজ্য সরকার ডিএ ঘোষণা করল।

মুখ্যমন্ত্রী অভিযোগ করেন রাজ্য ডিএ বাড়ালেও, সংবাদমাধ্যমেরও একাংশ তা নিয়ে অপপ্রচার করে। বকেয়া ডিএ নিয়ে পূর্বতন বাম সরকারেরও সমালচনা করেন।৩৪ বছর সময় মতো ডিএ না দেওয়ার জন্য এই পরিস্থিতি। তাদের করে যাওয়া ঋণ ১ লক্ষ ৮৬ হাজার কোটি টাকা শোধ করতে চলে গেছে। চলতি বছর ঋণ বাবদ আরও ৪৫ হাজার কোটি টাকা দিতে হবে।

পাশাপাশি তাঁর দাবি কয়েক লক্ষ টাকার দেনা মাথায় নিয়ে কর্মীদের মহার্ঘ ভাতা দেওয়া হচ্ছে। কর্মচারীরা সময়মতো বেতন পান। মহিলা কর্মীদের মাতৃত্বকালীন ছুটি অনেকটাই বাড়ানো হয়েছে। বাছাই করা কর্মীদের সিঙ্গাপুর এবং অক্সফোর্ডে প্রশিক্ষণের জন্য পাঠানো হচ্ছে।

WB CM institutes ‘Work from Home’ for officers during holidays

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The West Bengal Government issued an order to set up a “camp office” at the residence of secretaries or the heads of all the 68 departments.  Following the corporate structure of Work from Home, the State has now set another example of progress of work culture in the State.

It has been decided that a camp/residential office will be set up for the secretaries/heads of the department of the state government to enable the officers to devote more time and attention to official work before and after the office hours and even on holidays. The directive has been sent to the respective officers.

The directive is part of a drive by the West Bengal Chief Minister to clear the backlog in projects and schemes in the districts.

The order dated May 20 is the brainchild of the personnel and administrative reforms department, which reports to the Chief Minister. It said two attendants would be deployed in the residential offices and facilities like a computer, a printer and an Internet connection would be provided by the department concerned.

The order, an attempt to change the work culture will be helpful in a number of ways. Except a few secretaries like the chief secretary, the home secretary and the disaster management secretary, the others remain unavailable after office hours. The chief minister wants to change this culture.

A number of things have been promised to poor people and the minority communities and much work is still left. The department secretaries now will have to take the responsibility to complete the projects on time.

The West Bengal Chief Minister had made it clear that department heads should shoulder the maximum responsibilities.