Minutes of TSEWA Executive Committee Meeting held on 12 December 2018 at 143 Vayupuri, Secunderabad
The following attended: –
- Brig CS Vidyasagar President In Chair
- Cmde Sudheer Parakala (Retd) Vice President
- Col (Dr) GB Sethi (Retd) General Secretary
- Lt Col G Parvatesam (Retd) Treasurer
- H/Capt B Joseph (Retd) Joint Secretary
- H/Capt MN Reddy (Retd) President, TSEWA, Telangana
- Lt Col Vijay Salins (Retd) Administrator, TSEWA Website
- Col MJ Ganapathy (Retd) Member
- Maj B Bikshapathy (Retd) Member
- Lt Col N Ravi Chowdary (Retd) In Attendance
The President welcomed all present and requested General Secretary to give out his points.
Points from General Secretary
AFT 29 – A & AFT 29 – B: Brig SKS Rana, VSM (Retd), President, Legal Division has informed him that to expedite filing of cases, it has been decided that AFT – 29A and AFT – 29B are merged and will be filed as one case in AFT Delhi.
Veer Nari Association: A mail was received from Veer Nari Association who helps all widows of three defence services and para military forces requesting them to join NCESMO. Cmde Sudheer Parakala (Retd) stated that NCESMO is purely association of ESMs and family pensioners who come under Min of Def. Para Military Forces comes under Min of Home Affairs. Hence they are not eligible to join NCEMO. The President informed that the Veer Nari Association was advised to contact Brig Kartar Singh (Retd), President NCESMO who is authorised to admit or reject any association.
Info : All
AFT – 28: General Secretary informed that AFT – 28 case got delayed as some of the petitioners were not eligible to get pension of Rs 11,925 as they retired prior to Jan 1996. Those Majors or Lt Cdrs or Sqn Ldrs who are in service w.e.f. Jan 1996 are only eligible. He regretted in spite of many checks carried out at various stages in TSEWA, yet some of the in-eligible petitioners join the case which is very difficult for anyone to spot them and remove them. The AFT Delhi was able to spot such in-eligible petitioners after the list of petitioners was sent to respective Service HQs. The registry of AFT Delhi informed our advocate to remove such in-eligible petitioners from the legal case and re-submit a fresh Memo of Parties. Though TSEWA informs the environment of the eligibility of a legal case, yet we find petitioners do not check to see whether they are eligible or not and then delay filing of the legal cases in AFTs. It is also to be noted that since legal fees is paid, no refund of legl fees will be given to such in-eligible petitioners. It is in the interest of petitioners in future legal cases to check whether they are eligible or not to join a legl case. TSEWA informs the eligibility criterion when the case is initiated.
AFT – BB2: TSEWA filed a case in Hon’ble Supreme Court to grant arrears from date of retirement to petitioners in BB – 2 case.The Hon’ble Supreme Court asked to submit the details of how many petitioners are living and how many are dead. The information was not readily available with HQ TSEWA and the same was sought from the petitioners. Most of them responded and the same information was sent to Brig SKS Rana, VSM (Retd). The petitioners must know that hearings get delayed due to such new requirements sought by the courts of law.
Points from Lt Col G Parvathesam, Treasurer
Dependent Pension of Younger Son of (late) Col MK Veeramani: HFO A Venkata Reddy, Vice – President, TSEWA took up the case with CPPC, Oriental Bank of Commerce. The CPPC asked the branch to forward the case. Hopefully the younger son is likely to get dependent pension as Corr PPO was already issued by PCDA (Pensions) Allahabad that on demise of Col MK Veeramani, his mentally retarded younger son is eligible to receive dependent pension.
80(G): Our Chartered Accountant asked to submit details of donors with their mobile nos as the same was required to be handed over to the Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemptions), Hyderabad. The same was handed over to the Chartered Accountant. It is hoped we will get an audience with Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemptions) in Jan 2019 and in all likelihood TSEWA will get benefit of 80(G) benefit for our donors.
Points from Cmde Sudheer Parakala (Retd), Vice – President
Cmde Sudheer Parakala (Retd) informed that a mail has come from Lt Gen Vinod Nayanar (Retd) from Kannur that Sep Mathew who was helped by TSEWA is in dire straits as his son is diagnosed with cancer and he needs some financial assistance. Lt Col Vijai Salins (Retd) suggested that TSEWA should only give one time financial assistance as there is a tendency of such beneficiaries to keep coming to TSEWA. The President informed that the point is well taken and consideration of such cases has to be on case by case basis. It is better to allow Charity Division to go into details and take an appropriate decision. Cmde Sudheer Parakala (Retd) informed that if no financial assistance is given then it may so happen, the son of Sep Mathew may die. The Core Committee recommended as a special case a sum of Rs 10,000 be sanctioned.
Budget for Charity Division
At this stage, the General Secretary intervened and suggested that Treasurer should be able to give a quarterly budget in advance to the Charity Division to enable them to accord priority to the cases received by them.
Maj Bikshapathy (Retd) wanted to know how is Charity Division decides on the quantum and eligibility of beneficiaries.
The President informed how TSEWA got exemption of income tax from Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemptions), Hyderabad and how we are now going to get benefit of 80(G) of IT Act 1961 for donors. Now that TSEWA is a charitable organisation, we are bound to account 85% of our income on running our organisation and charity. We have to earmark some funds for charity. TSEWA gets donations from members and non-members. Mr Prabhu Dayal approached Shraddha Foundation in USA to donate some money and Col Virendar Tavathia suggested to make donation to TSEWA. The Treasurer sent all the bank details to Shraddha Foundation. Therefore when such donations come, the donors expect that their money be utilised for rendering financial assistance to genuine beneficiaries. We carried out charitable activities in Fin year 2016 – 17 for an amount of Rs 8.44 lakhs and in fin yer 2017 – 18 we crossed Rs 10 lakhs. Charity Div goes on ground and sees whether the beneficiary is genuine or not. In some cases, our contact persons in various states go to home of the beneficiary and send documentary evidence to enable Charity Div to approve or not of financial assistance. It is not possible for Treasurer to earmark funds for charity annually. He can only give amount available for charity on quarterly basis as our FDs give us quarterly interest and we know how much is our expenditure to run TSEWA in the next quarter.
Cmde Sudheeer Parakala (Retd) stated that donors know that TSEWA is making all out efforts to get 80(G) benefit during fin year 2018 – 19. Hence they are waiting for the sanction and once TSEWA gets 80(G) benefit for donors, then we may get more donations from members and non-members.
The Treasurer confirmed that henceforth, he will give quarterly budget to the Charity Division.
Point from the President
Succession Plan: The President informed that the tenure of the present Executive Committee and Office bearers of TSEWA elected by the AGM will be over by Jun 2021. In spite of his requests, very few members are evincing interest to attend weekly Core Committee meetings to know how TSEWA is running. Therefore, we need to identify suitable members of TSEWA to hold some positions as Office bearers to succeed the present Office bearers.
The General Secretary informed that this is one of the agenda points to be discussed in the Executive Committee to be held on 06 Jan 2019.
As there were no more points, the President thanked the members for attending the meeting and declared the meeting as closed.
Warm regards,
Brig CS Vidyasagar (Rtd)
President