Mail

Appeal to Mr Governor

Sir,

Although the people have a mental conditioning to favour and wish for elected governments only but I, as a keen observer of activities of politicians, there competence, knowledge, feeling for the welfare of the people and keeping in view the previous spells of Governor's rule, favour Governor's rule for the State of J&K as the development works take off during Governors rule only.

Your instructions, in no uncertain terms, to the State Administration to step up development and to gear up at all levels for addressing to the grievances of the people, has encouraged me to invite your kind attention through this esteemed leading local daily towards the following unbelievable problems being faced by the residents of this colony:

Although this seems unbelievable, but this is a fact that our colony, since its existence in 1995 is without water connections. No water pipe like has been laid by the authorities. We have to cover a distance of 2 kilometers (to and fro) to fetch portable water. Our colony falls right within the walled city of Jammu.

There are no electric poles in our colony although we are having valid metres and GR from the concerned department.

There are no drains and water gets accumulated on the lanes and by-lanes. That way the department is atleast earning the goodwill of pigs, if not ours.

Roads are kacha and no attention is being paid.

Although we have gone from pillar to post during the last six years but we only got promises and paper work done with no achievements in the field.

Taking the opportunity of failed talks between Congress and PDP and encouragement we got from your address to the Administration on 21-10-2002, the residents of this colony join me with a fervent hope, in requesting your kind self kindly to direct the concerned to visit our Mohalla and do the needful in a time-bound manner.

Yours etc...
Veerji Jalali
Durga Nagar Enclave
Behind Samaj Sudhar Janjghar
Durga Nagar, Sector-I

Payment of pensionary benefits

Sir,

Kindly refer to the news item captioned "High Court holds petitioner entitled for interest "in your esteemed paper of Ist Oct, 2002. This verdict has been awarded for delayed payment of the pensionary benefits to the teacher Mr. M L Nargotra.

There is an explicit provision in the J&K Civil Service Rules (CSRs) that a pensioner should start getting pension from the first of the month following that of his retirement. For strict implementation of the said rule the Govt. has (a) established a pension cell in the Dy. Directorate of the Accounts and Treasuries who is required inter alia to chase the cases till finalization (b) issued exhaustive instructions for watching progress by the Heads of Departments through monthly/quarterly statements (c) constituted Review Committees in every Administrative Deptt. Headed by the concerned secretary so as to sort out bottlenecks and provide remedies and (d) established Assistance/Grievances cell in the Finance Deptt. for the retired and the retiring employees. All this apart, statutory provision also exists for (a) initiating disciplinary action against the defaulting employees and (b) paying penal interest to the retiree for the delayed payment.

In this background of the huge provisions the news items in question came as a great surprise. Obviously the implementation of the rules goes entirely by default.

There is another astounding feature in this case. Once the Deptt. knew that payment was made after a delay of about one year it should have on its own initiated action for payment of penal interest to the retiree in compliance with the relevant statutory provision. That would have saved the State prosecution agency the bother of pursuing the case and the pensioner the hassles of litigation. In any case the common man would hope that the relevant penal provisions have been invoked for the defaulting official's due to whose negligence (a) the retiree had to suffer and (b) the Govt. had to undergo an avoidable loss.

That action would indeed go a long way in the direction of giving a start to the so far neglected rules.

Yours etc...
P N Dhar
Trikuta Nagar
Jammu.

Gift schemes

Sir,

Festival-gifts and many-a-time undesired items to be dumped in the houses as unproductive means of celebrating festivals. It is for Government to encash tradition of gift-exchange in festive season by introducing attractive gift-certificates exclusively for the festive season from public-sector banks. Philately and coin-collection can also be encouraged by introducing and popularizing attractive gift-packs with names printed for bulk buyers like public sector HMT does not bulk orders of its watches. Likewise other Government departments/undertakings should introduce such attractive gift-schemes of their products and services, exclusively designed for the festive season to attract people.

Yours etc...
Subhash
1775 Kucha Lattushah