ALL INDIA ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL EXCISE
GAZETTED EXECUTIVE
OFFICERS
Patron
Chief Patron
Patron
A.
Venkatesh
Ravi Malik
C. S. Sharma
Mob. 7780255361 Mob. 9868816290 Mob.
9313885411
President:
Address for communication: Secretary
General:
T. Dass Flat No. 6,
SE 11, Shastri Nagar, Ghaziabad Harpal Singh
Vice Presidents: B L Meena, K V Sriniwas (Central) Chinmoy Ghosh, Rajashish Dutta
(East) Ashish Vajpayee, Amadul Islam (North) B Pavan K Reddy, M Jegannathan
(South) Sanjeev Sahai, U D Meena (West) Joint Secretaries: S P Pandey, T
A Manojuman (Central) Apurba Roy, Siddhath Tewari (East) A K Meena, S K
Shrimali (West) Anand Narayan, Prabhakar Sharma (North) H Sadanand, M Nagaraju
(South); All India Coordinator: B L Meena Office Secretary: B C
Gupta Treasuer: Manoj Kumar Organising Secretary: Soumen
Bhattachariya Liaisoning Secretary: Bhoopendra Singh
(Recognised by G.O.I., Min. of Fin. vide letter F.No.
B. 12017/10/2006-Ad.IV A Dt.21.01.08)
Office address: 206, B wing, CGO Complex II, Kamla
Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad
Ref. No. 70/AIB/C/20
Dt. 24.04.20
To,
Dr T. V. Somanathan,
Secretary, Department
of Expenditure,
North Block,
New Delhi.
Sub: Freezing of
Dearness Allowance.
Sir,
Kindly refer to the OM of the
Department of Expenditure issued vide No. 1/1/2020-E-II (B) Dt. 23.04.20 on the
above subject matter.
2. It is to submit with due regards
that the payment of the Dearness Allowance, for the time being, has been
freezed for the period from January, 20 to June, 21 due to COVID-19 crisis
which may be extended further as per the impression given in the above referred
OM. It has also been mentioned in the said OM that the Dear Allowance would be
restored prospectively without payment of any arrears as and when the decision to
release the future installment is taken. Your kind attention is also invited to
a govt. letter moving on social media about deduction/contribution of one day
salary for the cause of corona to PM CARE Fund till the month of March, 21.
3. It is further to submit with due regards that ours is the
Association which was the first to make appeal for the cause of corona to
contribute at least one day salary. No need to say that our all
member officers contributed for this cause willingly. Many of them contributed
more than one day salary, even upto ten days salary, for this cause. Not only
it, our member officers are also contributing for the cause by helping the
needy persons by providing them food and clothes and also PPE kits for the
corona warriors including other helps without making any publicity and always willingly
ready to contribute more and more. But the freezing of Dearness Allowance and
contribution of one day salary per month for long period will place our officers
and their families in great hardship to survive. They will also be unable to
pay the installments of the loans taken by them for various purposes. They will be
highly burdened by such steps of the govt.
4. Both of the above communications are
giving impression that the govt. is not worried about its own employees who are
already working from home using their own appliances, electricity connection,
internet connection, telephone and mobile phone connection etc. Many of them
are already working under essential services in the departments like Customs,
Police, Health, Forest, Banking, Defence, Armed Forces etc. Despite of we
always being willingly ready to help the mankind in corona crisis, we strongly
protest the step taken by the govt. to freeze the DA as it is “gross injustice”
to the govt. officers. The concerned authorities have not given a thought or
have played smartly that this is not only the freezing of Dearness Allowance,
it will also affect other allowances associated with it. They took this decision
in haste and unilaterally. Instead, we were expecting a higher rate of Dearness
Allowance on account of the enhanced prices of commodities and cost of living under
the corona pandemic.
5. As far as
the said govt. letter for deduction against PM CARE Fund is concerned, it is
also mentioned in it to prepare a negative list of the officers who are not
willing to contribute. It would have been appreciated, if the said letter had
the mention to prepare a positive list of the contributing officers instead of
the negative list of the non-contributing officers. Such mention of the
preparation of the negative list only spreads the negativity in the time of the
corona pandemic in which the people are already living in an apprehensive
atmosphere. If any officer is unable to contribute, it doesn’t mean that he/she
doesn’t want to contribute. Such officer may be having his/her own reasons for
not contributing due to the compelling circumstances. The preparation of a
negative list shall put such officer in a very awkward and disgraceful
situation making him/her odd man out.
6. Not only
it, one more negative list is being prepared of the officers who are not coming
to office or not working from home. Needless to say that the officers are not
at home willingly but they are locked due to the govt. orders of “lock down”
and to be at home. They are also working from home as per the govt. orders. If
anybody is unable to work from home, it is due to his/her compelling
circumstances of not having due facility or being unable to log-in due to the
fault of systems or internet instead of individual fault. The preparation of
such type of negative list is also spreading negativity in the already panicky
atmosphere due to corona pandemic.
7. The freezing
of Dearness Allowance is one more negative step and it is really unfortunate
that such a negative step is being taken despite of the massive contributions
being made by the employees to fight the corona. On one hand, the govt. is appealing
to contribute for corona whereas on another hand, negative steps like freezing
of DA and preparing of negative lists are being taken. It will further spread
the negativity in the atmosphere. The present time requires to spread
positivity instead of negativity for morale boosting of the people as well as
govt. employees.
8. It seems
that it is only govt. employee who is made scapegoat under every circumstances
relating to any cut in pay or allowances or relating to income tax payment
because of not being able to hide anything like private sector. It would have
been appreciated, if such steps of compulsory contribution would have been
taken in r/o highly placed private enterprises. It may also kindly be noted
that these are only govt. employees who are fighting on front against this
pandemic without caring and sacrificing their lives. No private entrepreneur is
coming to fight this war on front except govt. employees. As far as VIPs are
concerned, we have around 6 lac such people who fall under the category of high
grade VIP.If they contribute or asked to contribute mandatorily a meager amount
of one lac (this amount is meager for them, not for us) each, the sum will be
in hundreds of millions of rupees. But we don’t know whether the concerned
authorities would like to deduct the said amount from these VIPs or not. We
also don’t know whether the concerned authorities would like to make deductions
from the high grade private entrepreneurs or not.
9. In view of the above, it is requested that the
decision of freezing of Dearness Allowance or making any other cut/deduction
from the govt. employee may kindly be reviewed to reinstate the position and also
no negative lists may kindly be prepared.
Thanking you,
Yours
sincerely,
(HARPAL
SINGH),
Secretary
General.
Copy with the request for necessary action to:
1) The Revenue Secretary, North Block, New Delhi.
2) The Cabinet Secretary, President House, New Delhi.
