Achievements of Department of Posts over past three years

7th Pay Commission: No clue about recommendations of Ashok Lavasa panel, employees' forum tells Cabinet Secretary

IndiaToday.in  | New Delhi, May 28, 2017 |

The inordinate delay in implementation of revised allowances under the Seventh Pay Commission has left Central government employees frustrated.

In a letter to Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha, the secretary of National Council (staff side) Joint Consultative Machinery said Central government employees were clueless about the recommendations of the Ashok Lavasa committee.

"The Committee on Allowances took longer time while finalising its recommendations, but it is a matter of deep regret that even after submission of the report by the said committee, the same has not been made available to the staff side (JCM), therefore we do not know what recommendations have been made by the said committee," said Shiv Gopal Mishra, secretary of staff side (JCM).

The JCM requested the Cabinet Secretary to make the recommendations of the Committee of Allowances available to them. On behalf of Central government employees, the JCM said that the government should implement revised allowances without further delay with effect from January 1, 2016.

While Central government employees are still waiting to hear from the Narendra Modi government, let us take a look at how other states are faring in implementation of the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission.

BIHAR: The Cabinet of Nitish Kumar recently agreed to increase the salary of its employees and pensioners following submission of report by the fitment committee on the Seventh Pay Commission. The salary of state government employees is likely to increase by 14-15 per cent. The decision will benefit 3.65 lakh employees and 6 lakh pensioners in Bihar.

CHHATTISGARH: The Raman Singh government announced implementation of Seventh Pay Commission for its employees in March.  Nearly 3 lakh state government employees will benefit from the decision.

JAMMU AND KASHMIR: The state government recently set up a seven-member panel to examine the revision of pay scales of employees and pensioners under the Seventh Pay Commission. The state's finance minister Haseeb Drabu, in his budget speech, had announced a 23.5 per cent hike in salary and post-retirement payouts. The Jammu and Kashmir government said it would implement the Seventh Pay Commission's recommendations from April 2018.

States like Uttarakhand, Haryana have already implemented the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission from January. 

Government starts online performance assessment system for bureaucrats

NEW DELHI: Probity, Sparrow and Solve -- these are the three new buzzwords for the central government by which bureaucrats and their service records are now going to be assessed through online portals to take the big call on retiring the non-performers or identifying those lacking integrity. 

The latest is the 'Online Probity Management System' launched by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) few days ago in association with other ministries to assess the integrity and  performance levels of officers. 

The government has been assessing the performance of all officers who have turned 50 or 55 or have completed 30 years of service to decide whether they be allowed to continue in service or compulsorily retired. 

"Since the number of officers under review is huge, it involves lot of paperwork at ministries and the submission of regular physical reports. 

The new 'Probity' portal makes the process completely online by which  ministries can now submit their reports online and the government gets a birds eye-view of the status on one portal," a government official told ET.

The Minister of State for DoPT and PMO Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said 30 Group A officers and 99 Group B officers had been sent on retirement in the past few months. Citing the huge number of officer records being scanned, Singh said 24,000 Group A officers and 42,251 Group B officers were put under the scanner before the recent compulsory retirements while the government was looking into service records of another 34,451 Group A officers and 42,521 from Group B to check on non-performers.

The new 'Probity' portal is also monitoring the rotation of officers on sensitive and non-sensitive posts to identify officers occupying sensitive positions for over three months, a senior bureaucrat told ET. 

The Sparrow (Smart performance appraisal report recording online window) system of the DoPT is meanwhile being used to make the entire appraisal system online and accessible for review by the ministries concerned. 

The DoPT has recently extended 'Sparrow' from just the IAS cadre to 13 cadres, including the central secretariat services (CSS). An official said the idea is to make the 'Probity' and 'Sparrow' portals work in conjunction. The third DoPT portal is 'Solve' --a system for online vigilance enquiry for board-level appointees. 

There is a plan to expand this portal for other employees to help the government coordinate between 'Probity', 'Sparrow' and 'Solve' portals to assess officers' performance and integrity. 

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

7th Pay Commission: Will central government employees finally get to know about their allowance structure?

 BT Online   New Delhi : May 29, 2017

Central government employees who have been waiting for an update on their pay hike are pinning their hopes on a meeting of Empowered Committee of Secretaries (E-CoS) scheduled on June 1. Officially confirmed by Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha, the meeting is meant to decide on recommendations over allowance structure.

For the past few weeks, central government employees have been on the tenterhooks as reports have repeatedly suggested a final decision on the 7th Pay Commission recommendations about allowances could be taken anytime soon. However, it remains to be seen when these recommendations will be finalised and submitted to the cabinet.

Meanwhile, a report on OneIndia says that the final draft of the allowance structure is likely to be formulated by the E-CoS in a meeting today. Although not confirmed by government sources, the meeting is supposed to focus on keeping HRA rates as demanded by the central government employees. Increase in basic pay and payment of arrears on revised allowance rates are also expected to be feature in the agenda.

The 7th Pay Commission proposed to bring HRA rates down to 24 per cent, 16 per cent and 8 per cent for XYZ cities respectively, as opposed to the 30 per cent, 20 per cent and 10 per cent being demanded by the staff. The E-CoS is supposed to ponder over recommendations in this regard by Committee of Allowances .

The Lavasa Committee has proposed HRA to be pegged at 27 per cent, 18 per cent and 9 per cent when DA crosses 50 per cent and 30 per cent, 20 per cent and 10 per cent when more than 100 per cent. Disappointed with the pay panel recommendations, central government employees and pensioners are hoping Lavasa Committee to bring about some good news.

No clear signs could be seen as to whether the E-CoS will adhere to the Lavasa Committee recommendations, or not. The Committee was formed under Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa to screen the recommendations made by the pay panel regarding allowance structure.

The 7th Pay Commission has suggested radical changes in allowances, many of which were not taken well by the central government employees. It had suggested that 52 allowances out of a total of 196 should be abolished completely and 36 others should be subsumed under existing allowances.

Once the recommendations are finalised, the findings of E-CoS will be consolidated during the meeting and June 1 before sending to the Union Cabinet for their approval on the same day.

Source : http://www.businesstoday.in

Every department should disclose demonetisation details: CIC

NEW DELHI: It was the duty of every government department concerned with demonetisation to spell out all relevant facts and reasons behind the radical move, the Central Information Commission has observed.

In what could be the first comments of the transparency panel on the lack of information about the notes ban decision, Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said any attempt to withhold information would generate serious doubts about the economy.

He said the attitude of building "steel forts" around the decision needed to be done away with.

"It is very difficult to reconcile with the attitude of building steel forts--that could not be broken even by 'Bahubali'--around the public affair of demonetisation in a democratic nation, if governed by rule of law," he said.

He was referring to the 2015 blockbuster film Bahubali.

The observations assume importance in the background of the Prime Minister's Office, the Reserve Bank of India and the Finance Ministry rejecting RTI applications which sought the reasons behind the notes ban.

The move to scrap Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016.

Acharyulu was deciding a case of an RTI applicant, Ramswaroop, who had sought information from the post office in Pinto Park Air Force area about the total currency exchanged there, the people who exchanged it and the number of customers who provided their identification proof for exchange.

The postal department claimed they did not have the information in a consolidated form.

Directing the department to disclose the information, Acharyulu also said all public authorities should reveal information about the move which has affected every citizen of the country.

"All the public authorities have a moral, constitutional, RTI-based democratic responsibility to explain to each and every citizen who is affected by demonetisation, the information, reasons, impact and remedial measures, if discovered any negative impact," he said.

He said the CPIO should not have brushed aside this RTI request which reflected his blatant anti-transparency attitude.

He said each person was affected by the decision and even beggars, rikshaw pullers, push-cart sellers reeled under this stroke.

"If the suffering was just temporary and there will be windfalls in future, let that also be told to the people officially by each and every public authority concerned with demonetisation," he said.

He said if public authorities shy away from disclosing any information related to notes ban, it would raise serious questions in the mind of general public. 

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

Canada issues Eid-ul-Fitr postal stamp

Canadian postal service has issued an Eid-ul-Fitr celebratory stamp on country’s 150th anniversary.

“As Canada reaches its 150th birthday, our stamp committee reflected on some themes that need to reflect the Canada of today,” Deepak Chopra, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Canada Post said.

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The stamp has ‘Eid Mubarak’ inscribed in Arabic on top of which is a minaret and a yellow pattern signifies architecture that is unique to Islam.

The stamp has blue and orange as its base colours.

Canada last issued a stamp pertaining to Islamic festivities some 50 years ago and until then the state only celebrated Christian and secular holidays.

According to Canada Post, the stamp has been issued for three years and would become a practice if it does well.

Canada is set to issue stamps over Jewish as well as Hindu festivities as well.

Source : http://dunyanews.tv/

7th Pay Commission Part II: Harsh times ahead for central government employees

They are not a vote bank for Modi government, hence they should not expect much

 S Murlidharan,@smurlidharan

 In June 2016, the Modi government took the central government employees head on by granting a niggardly hike in pay following the 7th Pay Commission recommendations - just 14 per cent or so as against the 6th Pay Commission’s egregious hike of 51 per cent a decade earlier in 2006.

This was hot on the heels of implementing its poll promise to armed forces' veterans - OROP, or one-rank-one-pension. To its credit, the Modi government did not go overboard even while honouring its OROP commitment.

Instead, it stood its ground and assured only a quinquennial (every five-year) exercise to bring parity in pension for same rank holders as against the annual parity demanded by the veterans.

If the Modi government could act tough with the armed forces' veterans, it could act tougher still with the central government employees. And act it did last year when it cleverly bought time for itself by separating pay revision from the allowances revision.

Pay revision, as said earlier, was jaw-dropping except for the employees at the lower levels. Having prepared them for the worst, the allowances part of the revision, separately considered by e-cos (empowered committee of secretaries led by former finance secretary Ashok Lavasa), would most probably be announced soon, may be in July 2017.

The 20 per cent reduction in house rent allowance across the board, resulting in HRA for example becoming 24 per cent of basic salary in X cities from the existing 30 per cent, is on the cards despite talks of the e-cos going soft on the 7th Pay Commission recommendations in this regard.

The 7th Pay Commission had also recommended axing of 52 of 196 allowances and merging of 36 allowances with the existing ones.

Though the Modi government has remained tight-lipped about its stand on the 7th Pay Commission recommendations in so far as allowance is concerned, it is unlikely to heed them if its record of acting tough is any indicator, especially when the one making demands is not a vote bank.
Modi and his finance minister Arun Jaitley know that central government employees do not matter at the hustings. Photo: India Today 
Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan is a slogan which resonates across the nation. But at 257 per 1 lakh of population, central government employees are no vote bank, unlike jawans and kisans.

It seems the Modi government has decided to challenge the status quo and shibboleths. While Modi may not be an innovator (by the way, the term itself is a back-handed and grudging compliment for those who tweak or steal inventions) as he is sought to be hailed and feted with by his party, BJP, he is arguably the one who doesn’t hesitate to rock the boat and ruffle feathers.

He first showed this proclivity when he abolished the Planning Commission soon after being installed in office and more recently when he demonetised high denomination currency notes, even though the jury is still out on whether he cut the nose to spite the face by doing so.

It is this proclivity that should temper enthusiasm, if any, in the ranks of central government employees that the Modi government would make up in the 7th Pay Commission Part II (allowances) what it cruelly denied in Part I last year.

Modi and his finance minister Arun Jaitley not only know that central government employees do not matter at the hustings, except perhaps in the Delhi elections, but also know that indulging them would upset the tender finances of state governments, many of which emulate the Centre while granting pay hikes and many of which are BJP-ruled.

They also know that central government employees as a class are a pampered lot at Rs 18,000 a month income as opposed to the national average of Rs 7,700 (statistics borrowed from my previous article on the subject dated March 23, 2017), even though that admittedly is way below what some of our honchos help themselves to unconscionably when it comes to their salary vis-à-vis the garden variety employees.Source :  http://www.dailyo.in/

Reference regarding Pay Fixation etc - Streamlining in procedure regarding

Applicability of Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 to persons re-employed in Government Service after retirement and whose pay is debitable to Civil Estimates/ Fixation of pay of State Govt.Employees on their appointment in Central Govt, subsequent to the implementation of CCS (Revised Pay) Rules,2016

Click here to view

Recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission - bunching of stages in the revised pay structure - reg

Extension of 7th CPC benefits and grant of Dearness Relief to Pensioners of Autonomous/Statutory bodies under Administrative Control of Department of Commerce

235 Banks and Department of Post involved with APY implementation

Press Information Bureau 
Government of India
Ministry of Finance

26-May-2017 12:12 IST

Atal Pension Yojana (APY) reaches 53 lakhs subscribers’ base 

235 Banks and Department of Post involved with APY implementation 

97.5% of the subscribers contributing at monthly intervals; 51.5% subscribers have opted for a monthly pension of Rs. 1000 

The subscribers base under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) has reached about 53 Lakhs. At present 235 Banks and Department of Post are involved with the implementation of the scheme. Besides the branches of the banks and CBS-enabled offices of India Post, quite a few banks are sourcing subscribers through their internet banking portals in a paperless environment. 

The APY Scheme follows the same investment pattern as applicable to the NPS contribution of Central Government employees.  During the year 2016-17, it has earned a return of 13.91%.

With a view to empower the APY subscribers, new functionalities have been developed where under a subscriber can view and print the ePRAN card and Statement of Transactions. Further, the subscriber can register complaints/ grievance by providing his/ her PRAN details on https://npslite-nsdl.com/CRAlite/grievanceSub.do.

Presently males account for 62% of the subscribers and female for about 38%. Most of the subscribers have opted for monthly contribution; about 97.5% of the subscribers are contributing at monthly intervals, about 0.8% at quarterly intervals and about 1.7% at half yearly intervals.

A majority of the subscribers have opted for a monthly pension of Rs. 1000/-.  Presently 51.5% subscribers have opted for a monthly pension of Rs.1000/- and 34.5% of the subscribers have opted for a monthly pension of Rs.5000/-. Pension amount wise segmentation of the subscribers is shown in Figure 1. 

Figure 1: Pension amount wise segmentation of the APY subscribers

The Atal Pension Yojana became operational from 1^st June, 2015 and is available to all the citizens of India in the age group of 18-40 years. Under the scheme, a subscriber would receive a minimum guaranteed pension of Rs.1000 to Rs. 5000 per month, depending upon his contribution, from the age of 60 years.  The same pension would be paid to the spouse of the subscriber and on the demise of both the subscriber and the spouse, the accumulated pension wealth is returned to the nominee.

Brief of the meeting held with the Cabinet Secretary , GOI on 23.05.2017 with the Secretary NC(Staff Side) JCM

Validity of downloaded Aadhaar (e-Adhaar) as proof of identity

Mobile Application for Delivery of Postal Articles - An Overview

Fast-track probe in corruption cases: Central Vigilance Commission to banks, government departments

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has asked all public sector banks, insurance companies and central government departments to speed-up investigation in pending corruption cases. The anti-corruption watchdog has written to the Chief Vigilance Officers (CVOs), who act as distant arm of the commission, of all the departments to also expedite investigation reports on complaints sought by it.

The CVC refers complaints of corruption in a government organisation to the CVO concerned for investigation and report. The move comes after it was noticed that many organisations were sitting over corruption complaints.

The commission has expressed desire that CVOs of all ministries, departments and organisations should review their respective pendencies and “take expeditious action” to bring them to a logical conclusion within the prescribed time limit, a directive said.

 They have asked to review cases in which further clarification has been sought by the commission and the matters pending implementation of the commission’s first and second stage advices (referred to punishment including censure to withholding increment) against alleged corrupt government employees.

The CVOs of banks, insurance companies and other government departments have to review and take action expeditiously on departmental probes pending with inquiry officers.

They also have to review the investigation reports on complaints sought by the commission.

“All CVOs concerned are advised to review all such pending matters concerning their departments/organisations and report action taken/compliance status to the commission expeditiously,” the CVC said.

The commission had in January sought details from the CVOs for the complaints pending investigation under two categories –- those pending for over an year and the others pending for over six months and less than an year’s time — by February 28 and March 31, respectively.

Corruption complaints against various government departments jumped by a whopping 67 per cent in 2016 over the previous year.

In its annual report tabled in Parliament last month, the probity watchdog said it received a total of 49,847 complaints in 2016, as against 29,838 in 2015 — an increase of 67 per cent.

Over 11,000 complaints of alleged corruption were received against the officials working under the railways ministry.

Source : http://www.financialexpress.com

Wannacry hits Russian postal service, exposes wider security shortcomings

Russia's postal service was hit by Wannacry ransomware last week and some of its computers are still down, three employees in Moscow said, the latest sign of weaknesses that have made the country a major victim of the global extortion campaign.

Wannacry compromised the post office's automated queue management system, infecting touch-screen terminals which run on the outdated Windows XP operating system, one of the workers said. Terminals were still blank in some parts of Moscow this week but it was not clear exactly how many branches had been affected.

A spokesman for Russian Post, a state-owned monopoly, said no computers were infected, but some terminals were temporarily switched off as a precaution. "The virus attack did not touch Russian Post, all systems are working and stable," he said.

Other institutions in Russia have said they were infected by the virus, highlighting Moscow's readiness to show it too is a frequent victim of cyber crime in the face of allegations from the United States and Europe of state-sponsored hacking.

The Interior Ministry, mobile operator MegaFon and state rail monopoly Russian Railways all reported infections, with employees locked out of their computers and the creators of the virus demanding ransoms of $300 to $600.

The Russian central bank said on Friday the virus had also compromised some Russian banks in isolated cases.

That the infected post office terminals ran on Windows XP - which Microsoft stopped supporting in 2014 - points to the widespread use of outdated software in Russia, which experts say left the country disproportionately vulnerable to the attack.

Of 300,000 computers infected worldwide, 20 percent were in Russia, according to an initial estimate by cybersecurity researchers last week.

Globally, few ransoms have been paid after many victims found they could restore their systems from backups.

The post office outages also illustrate what investigators say is a common misconception about Wannacry: infected computers are more likely to be part of antiquated systems not deemed important enough to update with the latest security patches, rather than machines integral to the company's core business.

"Many companies in Russia use outdated unpatched systems and older anti-malware solutions," said Nikolay Grebennikov, vice president for R&D at data protection company Acronis. "In big companies upgrades are hard to perform and avoided because of budget and scale."

SCRUTINY

Russia's relationship to cyber crime is under intense scrutiny after U.S. intelligence officials alleged that Russian hackers had tried to help Republican Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency by hacking Democratic Party servers. Moscow has denied the allegations.

Investigators are yet to track down Wannacry's criminal authors, saying they likely used a hacking tool built by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and leaked online in April.

It has not previously been reported that the Russian postal service, which employs more than 350,000 people, had been hit by the virus.

"The head guys rang on Thursday and said we had to turn off the terminals immediately. They said this extortion virus had infected them," a worker at a branch in northwest Moscow said, declining to be identified discussing internal company matters.

"They rang again yesterday and said we could turn them back on. We did that, but you can see they still don't work."

Employees at a second post office confirmed the electronic queuing system was broken but said they did not know why.

Two sources at Russian Railways said the company had suffered a "huge" cyber attack and a small number of computers were infected without damaging any important files.

The extent of the damage had been limited, one of the sources said, because a lot of computers were turned off at the end of the working week. "We were lucky it was a Friday night," he said.

Megafon, which is Russia's second biggest mobile operator, declined to comment on how the virus had got into its system.

It said the virus had caused a temporary outage of its customer support services. "Our sales points suffered worst of all because Windows, which had the exploited vulnerability, is more widely used in retail," a company statement said.

COMPUTER PIRACY

The frequent use of pirated software in Russia also helped spread the Wannacry infection, investigators said, as unlicensed products do not receive security updates.

Reuters has found no evidence any of Russian companies infected with the Wannacry virus were using unlicensed software.

But computer piracy is a long-standing issue for technology companies in Russia, one which has as become increasingly acute as the country's economic slump and falling earnings make licensed products prohibitively expensive.

Data compiled by the BSA Software Alliance trade group shows 64 percent of software products in Russia were pirated in 2015 - a black market industry worth $1.3 billion - compared to a global average of 39 percent.

"Piracy is still wide spread in Russia, especially if we are talking about home users," Grebennikov said. "This is because of poverty. If an operating system costs say 500 roubles, people would buy it."

Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system currently costs around 8,000 roubles ($140.92) in Russia, around a fifth of the average monthly wage of 39,000 roubles. Online, the same product can be illegally downloaded for free.

Source :  http://www.dnaindia.com

Reconstitution of Regional Council for JCM, Odisha Circle

Initiatives and reforms done by the Ministry of Communications in last three years

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Communications & Information Technology

25-May-2017 19:51 IST

Shri Manoj Sinha brief about the initiatives and reforms done by the Ministry of Communications in last three years 

India becomes second largest network in the world with crossing the landmark of one billion telephone subscribers: Shri Manoj Sinha

Total broadband connection till March 2017 crosses 276.52 million: Shri Sinha

Mega spectrum auction fetches highest ever upfront payment of Rs. 32434 crore against 965 MHz of spectrum since 2012: Shri Sinha

India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) launches two branches in Raipur and Ranchi: Shri Sinha

129 Post Office Passport SevaKendras (POPSKs) in various parts of the country has been agreed with MEA, 50 Operationalized till now: Shri Manoj Sinha

Shri Manoj Sinha, Union Minister of State for Communications held a Press Conference today to brief about the initiatives and reforms done by the Ministry in last three years. Shri Manoj Sinha said that the Ministry of Communications achieved significant mile stones since May 2014. A number of initiatives were taken for efficient implementation of policies through Department of Telecomm and Department of Post. Shri Sinha said that interests of consumers who use services provided by the ministry are high on the agenda of the Government. 

Three Years Achievement of the Department of Telecommunication

1. Physical performance

·         The Indian telecom sector has made rapid strides during the last few years because of several reforms and initiatives undertaken by the Department of Telecommunications. 

·         India now has the second largest network in the world, next only to China. India crossed the landmark of one billion telephone subscribers in the year 2015-16.

·         Total subscription now stands at 1194.99 million as on 31.3.2017.

·         501.81 million connections are in rural areas and 693.18 million in the urban areas. 

·         The wireless telephony constitutes 97.96% (1170.59 million) of all subscriptions whereas share of the landline telephony now stands at 2.04% (24.40 million) at the end of March, 2017.

·         261.97 million telephones were added during April 2014 to March, 2017 as compared to 86.69 million net addition during the April, 2011 to March 2014.

·         Mobile phone addition touched 266.07 million during the period from April 2014 to March 2017 as compared to 92.92 million during the April 2011 to March 2014

·         Total internet connections as on December 2016 was 391.5 million. Total broadband connection till March 2017 stood at 276.52 million.

·         139.91 million Internet connections have been added during March 2014 to December 2016.

·         Data traffic in India has shown a six fold increase from 561 million GB in the first quarter to 2988 million GB in the third quarter of 2016-17.

·         FDI equity inflow in telecom sector from April, 2016 to March, 2017 has reached US $ 5564 million which is more than four times the average inflow of about 1.3 billion annually (since 2013-14). 

2. Spectrum reforms

·         The mega spectrum auction was held in October, 2016 sold 965 MHz of spectrum in different bands.  The auction fetched highest ever upfront payment of Rs. 32434 crore since 2012.

·         Reforms such as spectrum sharing, trading, and harmonistaion have been done in the year 2016 to facilitate rationalization and optimum use of resources.

3. Other policy reforms

·         The ‘Aadhaar based E-KYC services’ for issuing mobile connections has been prescribed from September, 2016.  Under this, a subscriber can authenticate himself using his biometrics at the point of sale.

·         One Nation - Full Mobile Number Portability (MNP) has been allowed since 3^rd July 2015.

  

4. Projects

·         The flagship BharatNet program is being implemented to link each of the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats of India through Broadband optical fibre network.

·         As on date OFC has been laid in 202675 km covering 90027 Gram Panchayats (GPs). OFC pipes have been laid   in 2,24,340 km covering 100934 GPs.

·         Comprehensive Telecom Development Plan for North-East Region (NER) has been approved to provide mobile coverage to 8621 uncovered villages, installation of 321 mobile towers along National Highways and strengthening of transmission network

·         Proposal to setup 25,000 Public Wi-Fi Hotspots using the block-level infrastructure of BSNL’s Telephone Exchanges in rural areas has been approved.

·         A proposal for setting up of 5000 Wi-Fi Chaupals at Gram Panchayat levels in the 18 states of the country by CSC-SPV, at an estimated cost of`100 crore, to be funded from USOF, has  been approved.

·    An agreement is proposed to be signed with RailTel for setting up Wi-Fi hotspot at 200  at rural railway stations.

5. Consumer centric measures

·         Mobile phones sold in India now come with a dedicated “panic button” and Global Positioning System( GPS).

·         Department of Telecom has launched Tarang Sanchar, a web portal for Information sharing on Mobile Towers and EMF Emission Compliances. The portal can be accessed at www.tarangsanchar.gov.in

·         DoT had launched 1955 Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) in 5 states on 23/12/2016 and in remaining states on 12/1/2017 and 16/03/2017 for obtaining public feedback on call drops

·         Both Government and TRAI are taking all possible steps and pursuing with the TSPs to address the problem of call drop and bring it down within the permissible limit.

·         Department has launched “Twitterseva” on 2^nd August 2016 for obtaining feedback/grievances related to Telecom issues and services from the public.

6. MTNL

·         MTNL has launched a special program to progressively increase the fibre length by redeploying the broadband nodes (DSLAMS) near to the subscriber premises in Delhi and Mumbai thereby reducing copper length and enhancing the quality of broadband service.

·         MTNL is in the process of expansion of mobile network by adding 1080 new 3G sites for upgrading Data handling capacity to 10 Gbps.

·         Provided Wi-Fi Hotspots with more than 100 Access points at various locations in Delhi including 7 tourist places i.e. Red Fort, QutubMinar, Lodhi Garden, Humayun Tomb, PuranaQila and 5 market places i.e. Nehru Place, HauzKhas, Defence Colony, Arobindo Marg, Green Park.

·         Provided connectivity to set up 500 Wi-Fi Hotspot by Government of Maharashtra, Project commissioned on 9^thJanuary, 2017.

·         MTNL provided connectivity at 133 locations for Area Traffic Control Project of Mumbai Traffic Police for Road Traffic Monitoring.

·         The free night calling facility was introduced for all landline customers for making local calls to any network in Delhi and Mumbai between 10 PM to 7 AM.

·         Launched Android based “My MTNL”APP.

·         Introduced single Pan India Customer Care No.1130.

7.  BSNL

·         Present Market Share of BSNL is 9.95% (as on 31.12.2016) which was 8.16% as on 31.12.2015.  The total income increased by 7.05% upto third quarter w.r.t. previous year same period.  EBIDTA of BSNL which was (-) 691 CR in 2013-14 has become (+) 672 CR in 2014-15 & further (+) 3855 CR in 2015-16.

·         Till date BSNL has provided 5000 Wi-Fi hotspots (approx) in more than 1000 locations.

·         BSNL is in process of setting up 40,000 Wi-FI hotspots with Mobile data off loading shortly to provide 4G experience to 2G/3G customers.

·         BSNL is planning to provide 25,000 hotspots in each of its 25,000 rural exchanges in 2016-17.

·         BSNL has provided Night free calling (between 9 PM to 7 AM) to all networks for BSNL customers.  Sunday free calling has also been extended.

·         In Maharashtra Circle 500 villages in Nagpur SSA were provide with internet facility through Public Wi-FI hotspots with Fund support of State Govt.

·         ECR CONE (Enhanced Capacity & Resilience of Core Network) has been planned with an estimated cost Rs.1000 Cr. for higher Data speed Broadband services, leasing of High capacity Bandwidth to Telecom Operators/ISP’s which will includes implementation of the Super Highway Transport Network with 100 Gbps line capacity.

Three Years Achievement of the Department of Posts

1-     IT Modernization Project

With a total outlay of Rs. 4909 Crore, the IT Modernization Project of Department of Posts is being carried out and as a result (a) Data Centre is operational at NaviMumbai, (b) Disaster Recovery Centre (DRC) has been powered on at Mysore on 15^th May, 2015, (c) So far 23277 Post Offices for Core Banking Solution (CBS) and 25406 Post Offices for Core Insurance Solution (CIS) have been migrated. Automated Teller machine (ATM) Services-installed at 980 locations, (d) ATMs are inter-operable w.e.f. 31-12-2016 and (e) 28252 locations have been networked on a single Wide Area Network (WAN) and connected to Data Centre.

2-     India Post Payments Bank (IPPB)

The India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) has launched two branches in Raipur and Ranchi. IPPB aims to catalyze financial inclusion in India, by ensuring that everyone has equal access to financial services, no matter who they are, what they earn and where they live. IPPB will take basic banking to the un-banked and the under-banked across all cross-sections of society.

3-     Setting up of Post Office Passport SevaKendras (POPSKs)

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Department of Posts (DOP) have agreed to utilize the Post Offices in the various States as Post Office Passport SevaKendras (POPSKs) for delivering passport related services to the citizens. In current phase, setting up of 129 Post Office Passport SevaKendras (POPSKs) in various parts of the country has been agreed with MEA. Out of 129, POPSKs at 50 locations have been inaugurated till 19.05.2017 including Metagalli Post Office, Mysuru in Karnataka and Dohod Head Office in Gujarat which were the first to commence operations.

4-     Mobile Money Transfer Service:-

Mobile Money Transfer is a service that enables instant money transfer from one place to another using mobile, through Indian Post Offices. The consumer just needs to have a mobile phone while the actual transmission of the money is initiated by the Postal Assistant, using his/her special handset. This service is a boon for those sections of our society who regularly remit money to their homes at faraway places and who have no access to any other financial instrument like bank account, etc. except mobile phones.

Kindly click the given link below for detailed 3 years achievements of Department of Telecommunication & Department of Posts: