The election to three Municipal Corporations- Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Berhampur and 106 municipalities and NACs (notified area councils) in the State will be held on March 24, 2022 (Thursday).
In a letter to all the government departments, heads of the departments, revenue divisional commissioners (RDCs) and Collectors, Susamarani Devi, joint secretary to state Revenue and Disaster Management Department has directed to grant paid holiday to State government employees and special casual leave to government employees/ government undertakings in view of the polls.
“The government employees who desire to exercise their franchise at place away from their headquarters on the date of poll may be allowed Special Casual Leave for maximum three days i.e. on the day preceding poll, one day after poll and on the date of poll,” the letter read.
“The leave to be granted may be treated as special casual leave in addition to normal casual leave admissible to them during the calendar year, 2022,” the letter added.
Earlier, the State government had asked all business, trade and industrial undertakings to grant paid holiday to their employees on the voting day of the upcoming ULB elections.
While the hike will be effective retrospectively from July 2021, the State government employees will get the hiked salary from this month, October.
With this 11 per cent hike, the DA of the State government employees has increased to 28 per cent.
The Narendra Modi government had in July earlier this year approved DA hike for the Central government employees from 17 per cent to 28 per cent.
The 11 per cent hike announcement by the Centre came after adding three pending DAs, which included the 4 per cent DA announced for January to June 2020, including the allowance for the period July to December 2020 and January to June 2021.
It is worth mentioning here that, soon after the Centre's announcement, States like Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir also hiked DA for their respective government employees and pensioners from 17 per cent to 28 per cent.
Tuhin Kant Pandey, Principal Secretary, Finance Department of Odisha, today met bankers and treasury officers on disbursement of revised pension after allegations of non-payment of pension were raised by lakhs of retired employees in the State.
After the meeting, Pandey informed media that the lakhs of pensioners in the State will get the revised pension from this month.
Even though Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had on September 29 announced implementation of the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission for nearly 4.5 lakh State government employees and 3.5 lakh pensioners, the pensioners in the State were exempted from the bonanza as the bankers and treasury officers denied of having any information from the concerned department of the government related to the revised pension.
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"We have not got anything in written from the government related to the revise in pay of pensioners. Once we get the order, we will work accordingly," said an Assistant Bank Manager posted in a State-run bank in Bolangir.
On the other hand, the 'pay fixation' of the State government employees (working) is yet to be done by the government. "We have got the 'approximate' pay hike this month and hope the pay fixation work of the government will be completed by the end of this month," said an Assistant Section officer in the Sate Secretariat.
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"Besides, we have not yet got the arrears but we are 100% sure that by March-April 2018, we will get the arrears," he added.
Moreover, the lakhs of contractual employees in the State are yet to get their monthly consolidated remuneration which Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi had in September assured. He had said that the remuneration would be increased by about 25 per cent at their initial appointment and get 10 per cent increase every year till their regularisation.
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Meanwhile, the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations is all set to put an additional burden of Rs 4,500 crore on the State exchequer.
According to the provisions of Odisha Civil Service (Rehabilitation Scheme) Rules, 1990, family members of any state government employee possessing similar educational qualification as that of the staff will get government job if the employee dies during the period of his service.
The School and Mass Education Department in 2013 had sent the names of 595 persons to the state government for approval regarding their rehabilitation appointment.
"The rehabilitation rule promised to provide regular appointments in Group C and D posts. However, we were provided contractual jobs," claimed one of the agitators.
"Although being a deserving candidate we have been running from pillar to post for our legitimate right for the last 15 years. Our file moves to District Education Office and the officials there only give assurance of posting. We have already reached the age of 45 years," claimed Santosh Bal, a protester.
As per the press release issued by the Odisha Special Relief Commissioner, barring essential services like police, home guards, civil defence, fire and emergency services, disaster management, prisons, excise and municipal services, all other departments of State Government will work with not more than 10% staff or as directed by Government in General Administration & Public Grievance Department from time to time.”
Similarly, the district administration and treasury (including field offices of the Accountant General) will function with restricted staff, however delivery of public services shall be ensured and necessary staff will be deployed for such purpose, said the SRC.
The forest offices, staff/ workers required to operate and maintain zoo, nurseries, wildlife, fire-fighting in forests, watering plantations, patrolling and their necessary transport movement will continue as usual.
On the other hand, private organisations including corporates and civil society sector will also have to work with reduced manpower, preferably with 33% of their staff strength. The SRC also urged those organisations to encourage their staff to work from home.
The Odisha government extended the lockdown restrictions in the State till June 1 to arrest the steady surge in cases of Covid-19 in the State.
The two-week lockdown enforced in the State on May 5 was set to end on May 19. However, after thorough consultation with health experts, the government has extended the lockdown for two more weeks.
Applauding the efforts, Odisha Skill Development Authority said, "Whenever a disaster has struck us, our Skilled In Odisha trainees have extended a helping hand. A team of trainees from ITI Berhampur under the supervision of professors of IISER, Berhampur prepared 350 bottles of hand sanitizers at the IISER Lab."
Branded as 'Senitizers', these bottles will be handed over to the Ganjam district administration and Municipal Corporation for the emergency staff fighting against the pandemic, OSDA said.
[caption id="attachment_441928" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Image: Twitter[/caption]
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"We have produced around 350 bottles of 30 ml hand sanitisers for use by on-duty government employees. We will hand these over to the Berhampur Municipal Corporation for distribution," ITI principal Rajat Kumar Panigrahy said.
The hand sanitisers were produced at an IISER laboratory by Panigrahy and three other staff of the ITI along with faculty members of the institute's Department of Chemistry, he said.
"As there is an acute shortage of hand sanitisers in the market due to sudden rise in demand, we have decided to give them away to government employees for free," Panigrahy said.
Moreover, in view of the demand for hand sanitisers, some traders in the town are selling products of much inferior quality at higher prices, he said.
Branded as 'Senitizers', these bottles will be handed over to @DistrictGanjam for the emergency staff fighting to stop #COVID19 pandemic. Kudos to the #ITIBerhampur & IISER for this initiative. pic.twitter.com/wA7xPCgVc7
— Skilled in Odisha - OSDA (@skilled_odisha) March 22, 2020
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The hand sanitisers have been produced as per World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations, said Rakesh Pathak, head of the Department of Chemistry of IISER, Berhampur.
(With PTI Inputs)
A letter regarding this was issued by the General Administration Department on Wednesday detailing all the nuances of the provision.
The order read, “In order to encourage employees whose performance has been exemplary in furthering government initiatives, Government have prescribed provisions for promotion of such employees upgrading his/her position in the same batch or promoting him/her to the upper batches. Similarly with a view to weed out officers and employees of doubtful integrity and/or inefficiency from public service and to ensure efficiency in administration, Government have prescribed Pre-mature Retirement.”
The concerned authorities have been directed to conduct timely screening committee meetings and recommend name(s) of efficient employees for out of turn promotion or award of incentives and suggest name of employees for premature retirement.
The order prescribed a timeline for implementation of the same to be followed by all departments.
1. The Screening Committee for all the above purposes may be constituted and notified by the respective departments latest by 15th November, 2020.
2. The recommendation/ nomination/ report from the subordinate authorities/field establishments/Directorates/District Collectors may be simultaneously collected latest by 30th November, 2020.
3. The Committee for the purpose of premature retirement/ out of turn promotion and December, 2020.
4. The final report of recommendation/nomination must be submitted to the respective Administrative Department by 15th December, 2020.
5. The Administrative Departments may convene the meeting and finalise the list of employees for Premature Retirement, out of turn Promotion (both within the batch and across the batches) and award of Incentives and submit for Government orders/ Cabinet approval latest by 31st December, 2020.
(Edited By Bikram Keshari Jena)
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