Submission of Memorandum on the burning problems of the postal employees.

All India Postal Employees Union Group ‘’C’’ H.P. Circle HQ at Una-174303

No:      HP/P-III/Agitation                    dated at Una the 07.05.2016

To

            Shri Narender Modi Ji,

            Honorable Prime Minister of India,

            New Delhi-110001

Sub:     Submission of Memorandum on the burning problems of the postal employees.

Respected Sir,

            I , have been directed by the All India Postal Employees Union Group ‘’C’’ H.P Circle to bring to your kind notice the miserable plight of postal employees working in post offices.

            Sir, the Indian Postal system is the largest and most credible Department catering the needs of one billion people of India particularly the people working in rural India. The postal Department is the victim of apathy of previous Government which is left to be run by bureaucracy only. We are soliciting your kind intervention to kindly safeguard the interest of postal services and the postal employees.

            (1)        Shortage of staff in Postal Department

            The 7^th Pay Commission in his report has admitted that there is shortage of around 60000 Group ‘’C’’ employees in the post offices. Whereas there is no shortage in Group ‘’A’’ and Group ‘’B’’ Officers. Due to irregular / impracticable recruitment policy, the recruitment against the vacant posts could not be made during the last three years. Resultantly, the figures of vacant posts of Group ‘’C’’ staff have arisen to 70000. In Himachal Pradesh which is a hilly state around 1000 posts are lying vacant.

            Sir, the services are to be run by the postal employees only. The mechanization / the computerization / modernization is for the benefit of the staff / public / Department. But any Department can not function smoothly to needs of the public without the manpower. The postal employees of Himachal Pradesh pray and solicite your kind intervention to cause filling up of all the vacant posts and the accountability of the authorities concerned for not filling up these posts well in time may kindly be fixed.

            (2)        Introduction of various new schemes in the name of IT Project-2012 in the post offices

            As per IT Modernization project 2012 , all the post offices are to be rolled out to CBS. It is learnt that targets are fixed at the central level to the circles for rolling out the post offices to the CBS and the authorities at the lower level are mindlessly implementing the schemes without ensuring appropriate manpower and infrastructure in the post offices. The time taken on every transaction of the CBS office is higher than the time taken for the work done on previous software. In the CBS, every transaction has to be verified by the supervisor but surprisingly in post offices there is shortage of supervisors by 50%. As a consequence, the verification work is either being performed by the operator itself or by the person not authorised to do it.

            Despite all that the postal employees by working late hours till midnight have successfully implemented the CBS project without any proper training/ relief.

            The CBS functioning depends upon manpower, net connectivity and regular functioning of central server. In post offices, it is very often complained that the connectivity is very poor. Every day a mail is received conveying that Finacle ‘’The CBS Software’’ is down all over India and the staff working in the post offices has to wait to resume the work till central server and net connectivity is restored. The Postal Administration who claims its success in implementing the various projects has no accountability in redressing the issues being faced by the staff. In Himachal Pradesh, the Government provides holding of periodical meetings between the Administration and the Unions, unfortunately, despite repeated requests the Chief Postmaster General Himachal Pradesh Maj Gen A. K. Shori is deliberately avoiding holding of such meetings resulting compounding of the issues being faced by the staff.

            Due to this attitude, the postal employees of Himachal Pradesh organised a protest Day Long Dharna on 03.04.2016 (Sunday) at Shimla to focus the attention of the authorities concerned on the issues emerging out from the implementation of new schemes.

            There is every mechanism available to question the poor lower level employee who is responsible to give a shape to the Government policies at the ground level but Sir, there is a feeling rather it is true there is none to question the bureaucracy on their do’s and don’ts.

            The postal employees of Himachal Pradesh as well as of India have very high hopes from our Honorable Prime Minister known for his prompt decisions as well as for his commitments. As such, we hope that an appropriate remedial action to save the credibility of postal Department and the peace of mind of postal employees will be taken.

            With profound regards,

                                                                                                Yours faithfully,

                                                                                                (H. S. Guleria)

Copy to:

1.         Shri Anurag Thakur, Member Parliament and Chairman Standing Committee on IT with request to kindly raise the issue in the Parliament.