Dated: 27th November 2015
To
The Chairman
LIC of India
Yogakshema
Mumbai.
Respected Sir,
We are submitting the resolutions passed in the 4th Secretariat meeting of Federation of LIC Class-1 officers associations, held at Rishikesh on 23rd November 2015 for your kind consideration and favorable action.
We appreciate the efforts taken by the Corporate Office in getting a reasonable wage revision for all LICians, considering the environment prevailing in the country. However a Uniform Increase in Basic Pay and consequent benefits across the classes is not sufficient to tackle the problems faced by Class 1 Officers. Our major demands for making promotions attractive and avoiding stagnation do not find a place in the final offer presented. In the individual discussions we have made it clear that specific problems faced by Class 1 have to be addressed and the management has given assurance to do the same. This is very much essential for boosting the morale of officers and for the effective functioning of LIC. We reiterate our demand for automatic upgradation into the next cadre once stagnation is reached and stagnation increment after every 2 years as done in SBI. We also demand substantial improvement in non-core areas, given exclusively to class-1 cadre, especially those related to transfer, leased accommodation and educational allowance to compensate the sufferings of Class 1 Officers due to frequent transfer for office exigencies. The proposed changes assured should cover the stagnation faced by all cadres right from AAO to ED and any settlement which ignore the stagnation faced by officers, especially in AO and ADM cadre will not be acceptable to the Federation.
We appreciate the gesture of the management in the implementation of 5 day week. The decision has been arrived at after taking into account the opportunity to provide sufficient leisure to the employees. The cost factor also is taken into account. However there is a tendency in some parts of the country to insist for opening office on Sundays and Holidays. One of the zones issued written instructions to open office during Pooja holidays which has created lot of unrest among the officers community. VCs are being held continuously and invariably on Sundays, which make the social life of marketing officials irrelevant and they are being cast away from family and society. The ultimate result is going to be negative both on productivity and cost effectiveness. We have always accepted flexibility in operations required in a marketing organization and responded positively to the challenging environment. While we reiterate our continuous support, such aberrations against our HRD policy is causing concern. We request the intervention of Corporate office to prevent such deviations and ensure that holidays are real holidays for all. This is going to be more relevant when we are going to declare Saturday as a holiday and instructions should be issued to ensure that it do not become a working day without Concurrencia for officers, and unproductive expenditure for the corporation.
Pending Vigilance cases has been a major cause of concern for officers. In spite of the guideline from Chairman, there are 56 cases pending for more than 2 years. Whatever be the cause like involvement of CVC or Cluster case, the ultimate sufferer is the officer. Inadequacy of proper circulars and guidelines and insufficient knowledge level at various stages aggravate the problem. The bifurcation of minor and major penalty and consequent changes have not yet happened. Even in cases where the enquiry officer finds no evidence to proceed against the officer, charge sheets are framed and punishments are imposed, without proper evidence. Appeals have become a formality as in every case the decision of the disciplinary authority is uphold, irrespective of the merit of the case. There is no provision for even memorials for ADM and above as the disciplinary authority is Chairman himself. We request a total review of the entire procedures and systems to ease the burden of the offices. We also demand a proper system for appeals in the model of Central Administrative Tribunal within LIC as per the directive of Government of India, to handle representations on vigilance, transfer and promotion issues as the present grievance redressal system has proved to be a total failure.
The inordinate delay in promotion from one cadre to another has become a continuing event and now officers have started not thinking about promotion. What is going to be the future of a marketing organization, if people shut their mind towards promotion? In the last year special CRs of 2006 batch AOs were called, but not even a single person is selected, taking the minimum period to 10years in 2016. Ten years in one cadre, that too many in the most important post of BM in charge and how do we expect increased productivity, in this frustrating environment. Same is the case with SDM to Zm(o). Two vital posts in LIC, BM in charge and SDM in charge are frustrated to the core. How far we can ignore this? We request the management to constitute a committee with one representative from the Federation, to explore the possibilities of increasing promotional opportunities, so that we can find some solace before the next round. We also demand that number of vacancies available in all cadres should be declared in advance.
Income tax on maturity proceedings of policy has become a shock to the policy holder. We have never educated the customer about this in the past and even now. The problem is acute in NRI cases as they do not have a pan card and end up paying flat 20% IT on their hard earned money which affect the future sale. This has resulted in a huge reduction in procurement of single premium policies. Even social security schemes aimed at the welfare of poor and BPL section are subject to income tax and service tax. We request the management to appraise the finance ministry about the implications of this in LICs business and premium collection, which is ultimately going to affect the nation building activities so that corrective steps are taken in this budget itself.
In the last information sharing session all the MDs and Chairman have expressed their concern on the continuous de-growth in New Business and increase in management expenses. We also feel that these two vital areas have to be properly addressed for the future of the organization. The agents are looking for other alternatives, DOs are getting terminated and the marketing officials are being harassed in the name of non-performance, even though the situation is beyond their control. We are going to face large scale exit of SBAs and productive development officers in the coming years and if there is no alternative, it will worsen the marketing scenario. We request the management to have a specific session of all Unions/Associations to discuss exclusively on these two topics so that we can jointly address the problem and make the organization more strong and efficient.
Thanking you,
With regards,
S Rajkumar
General Secretary
No comments:
Post a Comment