The following attended:
- Brig CS Vidyasagar (Retd) President in the Chair
- Cmde Sudhir Parakala (Retd) Vice President
- Col GB Sethi (Retd) General Secretary
- Col S Srikantha (Retd) President Karnataka
- Hony Capt MN Reddy (Retd) President Telangana
- Lt Col G Parvatesam(Retd) Treasurer
- Gp Capt CRR Sastry (Retd) Joint Secretary
- Hony Capt B Joseph (Retd) Joint Secretary
- Col MJ Ganapathy (Retd) Member
- Col N Sitaramaiah (Retd) Member
- Cdr Chandrashekhar (Retd) Member
- Maj B Bikshapathi (Retd) Member
Some Core Committee members were present as invitees.
The President welcomed all present and thanked them for their efforts to attend the meeting. He requested the General Secretary to commence the proceedings by giving out his points.
General Secretary’s Points.
Item I. Progress on points of last NEC Meeting. All actionable points of last meeting except forming of liaison cells were actioned.
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Item II. Ratification of Decisions taken by Core Committee. The President said that since NEC is composed of many out-station members who cannot attend TSEWA meetings frequently, a sub committee composed of NEC Members based at Secunderabad and some active members of Secunderabad to provide regular inputs to the Office Bearers and monitor the implementation of decisions taken. The decisions taken by Core Committee are circulated as Minutes of Meeting each week to all NEC Members and their views are sought. However, the General Secretary lamented that members are not providing regular feedback on the minutes circulated and requested the Out-Station Members to be more active in providing their considered views on the issues discussed in weekly meetings. Since no dissenting comments were received on the minutes of weekly meetings held during the last three months and hence all decisions taken by Core Committee are recommended for ratification. The decisions were unanimously ratified.
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Item III. Membership. The TSEWA Membership has touched 10,730 and 1280 members were enrolled in the present quarter. As always, Hony Capt B Joseph has contributed to more than half the members through his regular enrolment drive each month during his trip to Benguluru. General Secretary as well as the entire NEC complimented Hony Capt B Joseph for his sterling contribution.
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Item IV. Donations for TSEWA by Executive Committee Members. Consequent to the appeal by General Secretary that all NEC Members should make monthly donations to build corpus of TSEWA, many members have responded. They are making monthly donations as per their mite and the exemption under sec 80G of IT Act 1961 granted by IT Dept will boost these donations.
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Item V. Awareness Camp at Jawahar Nagar, Secunderabad. An awareness camp was conducted at ESM Colony of Jawahar Nagar at behest of Hony Capt B Joseph. All members of Core Committee participated in the meeting which was attended by almost 200 Pensioners of whom more than 50 were family pensioners. The Pensioners were made aware of activities of TSEWA by President , Vice – President and the General Secretary. Gp Capt CRR Sastry spoke about legal cases and requested the ESM to join the cases for Joint Applications.
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Item VI. Other Activities. The General Secretary reviewed as under:
– NCESMO Delegation comprising of eight members including three JCOs attended the meeting with Hon’ble Raksha Mantri on 18th February 2019 and all Agenda Points were discussed. The Hon’ble RM has announced that majority of appeals filed against the orders of AFT on disability pensions will be withdrawn.
– Few ESM Organisations in AP have joined to form the AP State NCESMO. It was decided that a meeting of all these Organisation will be organised to enable them to elect their President who will represent the AP State NCESMO at RM’s Meeting each quarter.
– He requested Col Srikantha to brief the house on latest in ECHS.
– The Next NEC Meeting will be held on 22nd June 2019 and the AGM will be held on 23 June 2019.
– Deeds and Good work done by Members should be intimated to General Secretary so that they can be recorded in the TSEWA Newsletter so that these can inspire others to emulate.
– Web site of TSEWA is not yet active as there is no dedicated member to drive this activity The General Secretary invited a member of NEC to take on this task and Maj B Bikshapathi agreed to drive the activity of maintaining the website. He requested Maj B Bikshapathi to interact with M/s IQM staff to take this activity forward in a vigorous manner.
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Treasurers Points.
Item VII. Financials for the Fourth Quarter till 23 March 2019. The treasurer narrated the financials of TSEWA (Income and Expenditure) and concluded that the expenditure is commensurate with the income. He listed the major expenditures incurred during the quarter which were ratified by the NEC.
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Cmde Sudheer Parakala
Item No VIII. Charity Activities. During the quarter a sum of Rs 1,06,375 was approved as charity to six Beneficiaries and the amount would be disbursed in April 2019. The Charity extended in the Financial year 2018-19 is Rs 5,68,500 to 30 beneficiaries of which 10 beneficiaries got assistance for education,16 for penury assistance and 4 for medical expenses. He expressed his anguish that even though we have state presidents in eight to ten states, the cases for Charity come from only about 4 states. Through the NEC, he appealed to all State Presidents and active members in other states to send details of deserving cases to Charity Committee so that the Charity extended by TSEWA is spread all over the country. He also appealed to the State Presidents and active members in other states to seek donations from potential donors so that TSEWA can extend charity to more and more beneficiaries. The General Secretary said that Treasurer should indicate the approximate amount that is available for charity in each quarter so that Charity Committee can plan the expenditure in a systematic manner.
Action: State Presidents Info: All
Item No IX. NCESMO. Cmde Sudheer Parakala (Retd) explained the formation of NCESMO in August 2019 and the first meeting of delegation of NCESMO with Raksha Mantri on 27 November 2018. He narrated the proceedings of the second meeting of Delegation with Raksha Mantri in 18 February 2019 and said that the discussions in the meeting helped the MoD in acceding to two issues – withdrawal of appeals filed in Supreme Court against the Orders of AFT granting the Disability Pension to ESM and Construction of ECHS Hospitals with 200 beds in three Military Stations. These measures he said are substantial progress for ESM as unnecessary litigation is avoided for disabled ESM and ECHS Beneficiaries can get quality medical treatment with substantial savings for ECHS. He regretted that Defence Minister could not accede to more issues as they all have financial effect and with Defence Pension Budget crossing Rs one lakh crores, the Ministry of Finance was not agreeable to any additional expenditure at this juncture. During the discussion that followed Cmde Sudheer Parakala regretted that many constituent Organisations of NCESMO like DIWAVE were unable to attend as they did not get the intimation of the meeting. It was decided to request the President NCESMO to drive the activities of NCESMO more vigorously. Cmde Parakala was happy that with efforts of Col Sitaramaiah, two more ESM Organisations have joined the NCESMO and suggested that a meeting of Presidents of all these ESM Organisations should be held in Hyderabad so that they can elect a President of NCESMO of AP. He further requested Col Sitaramaiah to make similar efforts in Telangana State along with Hony Capt MN Reddy and Hony Capt B Joseph also to enable more ESM Organisations join the NCESMO. Gp Capt CRR Sastry said that efforts should be made to get formal recognition of NCESMO by the Dept of ESM Welfare and for that NCESMO should be registered under the Societies Act.
Action: Col N Sitaramaiah Info: All
Gp Capt CRR Sastry
Item X. Progress of Legal Cases. Gp Capt Sastry briefed the house on the state of legal cases and said that 17 cases are filed, 13 cases are awaiting filing at Delhi and other Benches and 6 cases are under scrutiny at TSEWA Hqrs. President said that in the next six weeks, all cases pending at Hq TSEWA be sent to either Brig SKS Rana, VSM (Retd), President, Legal Div or to regional benches. There after he explained the reasons for tardy progress in filing of these cases as well as the slow progress in hearing of these cases. He attributed the delays to large scale vacancies of members in the AFT benches leading to many of them being dysfunctional, members needing to travel extensively to hear cases in empty benches leading to reduced number of sittings and unduly very long adjournments for cases etc. The house appreciated these difficulties and said that a note on difficulties faced by TSEWA in facilitating Legal Cases should be prepared and be posted on our Blog. The latest progress of the Cases and the Note on Difficulties faced by TSEWA in facilitating the Legal Cases are placed as Appendices to this Minutes. The House further discussed the dysfunctional state of AFTs and felt that NCESMO should file a PIL in SC to get a Writ Mandamus issued to the MoD to fill the vacancies in a time bound manner. It was also suggested that an article on the issue be got published in Fauji India magazine.
Action: Gp Capt CRR Sastry Info: All
Col S Srikantha.
Item XI. Briefing on ECHS. Col S Srikantha briefed the house on the latest in ECHS matters. Cmde Sudheer Parakala said that 64 KB Card has become a big head ache for the card holders as the soft ware for this card has not yet been installed and hence such card holders are treated as persons without cards and their registrations is made through the application which requires the approval of OIC, PC. This step results in 64 kb card holders getting allotment of appointment with doctor much later as 5 to 10 minutes can mean 10 to 30 numbers behind. The patients in dental section suffer most as such delay can mean an additional waiting period of one to three hours. Col S Srikantha said that OIC PC can delegate the power to register to the Volunteer so that delay can be avoided. Gp Capt CRR Sastry said that since Application software is centrally driven, it may be a good idea to take up this issue with Central Organisation.
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Col Sitaramaiah.
Item XII. Conducting the NEC Meeting in places other than Secunderabad. Col Sitaramaiah said that to enhance the foot print of TSEWA in in places other than Secunderabad, the NEC meetings should held in Cities other than Secunderabad. The house agreed with the concept of the proposal but felt that a very dedicated team of a city with large ESM presence will be essential for hosting such a meeting. It was felt that this idea can be discussed further to take it forward at an opportune time.
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Presidents Points.
Item XIII. Activities of TSEWA Functionaries in States. The President lamented that many TSEWA functionaries have ceased to be active and we are not getting any reports about the activities undertaken by them. They are not browsing the Minutes of weekly meetings as we are neither getting any comments or acknowledgment from them. The President was also anguished by the general attitude of ESM who are not inclined to involve themselves in any activity unless they see some gain for them in it. He said it is disheartening to see that even in Secunderabad very few new volunteers join the activities of TSEWA. He said an organisation like TSEWA can run and carry out meaningful activities without money, but it will soon become defunct and comatose without large band of active Volunteers.
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There being no further points, the meeting was closed at 1630 hrs.
Brig CS Vidyasagar (Retd)
President