NEW
DELHI, JAN 16:
Postal employees have called off their
country-wide indefinite strike from January 17 after the Government agreed not
to merge any post office, only relocate some. Also, no L2 Railway Mail Service
sorting office will be closed, at least for three
years.
The agreement was reached between the
Department of Posts and the Joint Council of Action, representing 5.5 lakh
postal employees belonging to four national federations after five rounds of
talks that ended on January 13.
“We are 80 per cent satisfied with the
agreement. Based on the written assurances by the Secretary, Posts and on the
assurance that a meeting with the Minister of State for Communications will be
arranged shortly on unresolved issues, the JCA has decided to all off the
strike,” Mr M Krishnan, Secretary General, National Federation of Postal
Employees, told Business Line.
To streamline core mail operations,
already under threat from emails and courier services, the Postal Board had
proposed to redesign the first class mail network, which is divided into L1 and
L2 sorting categories. It had proposed to close down some offices in L2
category.
“The Chairperson (Postal Board) assured
us that L2 mail offices will not be closed for three years”, said Mr Krishnan.
The JCA said it was not opposed to modernisation of the postal department
provided jobs were not threatened.
As part of the redesign, Automatic Mail
Processing Centres are being installed in Delhi and Kolkata. Once these are
installed, the consolidation of mail offices will be discussed with the staff
side. The JCA was also assured that merger of mail offices in Mumbai and Chennai
would be put on hold till new sorting machines were in place, said Mr
Krishnan.
As regards, merger of post offices, the
JCA held these could be “shifted in cases of litigation and poor condition of
buildings” and that “closure should be accompanied by simultaneous
relocation.”
The Department agreed that there was a
need for rationalisation of postal network instead of resorting to temporary
merger of post offices. Circles will identify areas where new post offices are
required and would also identify post offices that do not meet the norms and do
not have sufficient work and will submit a report to the Directorate”, said Mr
Krishnan.
It was agreed that ‘unresolved’ issues
such as providing civil servant status to over three lakh Gramin Dak Sevaks,
wage revision etc. would be discussed later.
Courtesy :
Hindu Business Line
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