Minutes of Weekly Meeting of the Core Committee of TSEWA at 0915 hrs on 17 Apr 2019 at 143, Vayupuri, Secunderabad- 500 094
The following attended:
- Brig CS Vidyasagar (Retd) President in Chair
- Cmde Sudheer Parakala (Retd) Vice President
- Col Dr GB Sethi (Retd) General Secretary
- Lt Col G Parvathesam (Retd) Treasurer
- Gp Capt CRR Sastry (Retd) Jt Secretary
- Hony Capt B Joseph (Retd) Jt Secretary
- Hony Capt MN Reddy (Retd) Member
- Col MJ Ganapathy Member
- Maj B Bikshapathy (Retd) Member
- Lt Col Vijay Salins (Retd) Member
- Cdr Chandrashekhar (Retd) Member
- Col Ramana Reddy (Retd) Member
The President welcomed all present and thanked them for sparing their time to attend the meeting. He requested the General Secretary to commence the proceedings by giving out his points.
General Secretary’s Points.
Item No I. War Widows Association. The General Secretary said that a letter was received from War Widows Association about proposed assistance to needy war widows and requesting for wide publicity. It was decided that NCESMO should be involved in this and also give publicity among TSEWA Members.
Item No II. Donations for NFU Cause. The General Secretary said that some veterans are donating for NFU Cause and they will be issued with receipts.
Item No III. Forthcoming AGM for the Year 2018-19. The General Secretary said that the next AGM will be held in June as decided. During the discussion on AGM, it was mooted by Cdr Chandra Shekhar to have the AGM at a place other than Hyderabad. The President immediately spoke to Brig RS Rawat (Retd) of Uttarakhand and it was decided that the next AGM will be held at Dehradun on 6th and 7th July 2019. Gp Capt CRR Sastry said that such a move will get huge publicity to TSEWA in that region and enable the Organisation to expand its foot print in the region where such meeting is held. However, he said that TSEWA cannot bear the expenditure of Travel for members to attend as such expenditure will be very huge and members being voters in the meeting cannot be paid travel cost which can be viewed as inducement. The General Secretary appealed to all members to bear in mind and make their travel arrangements.
Treasurer’s Points.
Item No IV. Notice from IT Department. The Treasurer said that the Notice was handed over to the CA for his perusal and needful action. The CA is of the view that we need not pay any tax as we are exempted under sec 12A of IT Act.
Item No V Appeal to Corporates. The Treasurer said that the Exemption under Sec 80G of IT Act granted to TSEWA will encourage the donors to come forward and donate generously. For this there is a need to draft an Appeal to Corporates and Gp Capt CRR Sastry was requested to draft the Appeal.
Cmde Sudheer Parakala
Item No VI Formation of State Units of NCESMO. Cmde Sudheer Parakala said that NCESMO has two years to put in place the elected body comprising of duly elected state units of NCESMO who will in turn elect the National President and Vice President of NCESMO. At present he said that due to the sustained efforts of Col N Sitaramaiah, a number of ESM Organisations spread across four to five districts of AP have expressed their desire to join the AP State Unit of NCESMO. Gp Capt CRR Sastry suggested that a meeting of all these District level Associations should be held at Hyderabad on a convenient date so that the formation of AP State Unit of NCESMO is accomplished. It was decided that such meeting will be held on 28th April 2019 at Secunderabad and the President personally conveyed the invite to Presidents of all District level Associations in AP.
During the discussions, Gp Capt CRR Sastry suggested that we should aim to form State Units of NCESMO in Telangana and Tamilnadu in South. Immediately, the President spoke to Col TN Raman to drive the activity in Tamilnadu. Similarly, in North we should aim to form three State level Units in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab and consider inviting the TSEWA Presidents of these states for a meeting before or after the AGM in July 2019. The President agreed to the suggestion.
Capt B Joseph
Item No VII. Arrears in BB2 Case Not Yet received. Capt B Joseph said that one Family Pensioner who applied on behalf of her late husband, has not yet been granted the arrears. Gp Capt CRR Sastry (Retd) agreed to take up the matter with Brig SKS Rana, VSM (Retd) for his intervention with AGs Br in Army HQ.
Gp Capt CRR Sastry (Retd)
Item No VIII. Filing of AFT 29 and Other Cases in which some members have not submitted the fresh Documents. Gp Capt CRR Sastry (Retd) informed that Brig SKS Rana, VSM (Retd) has proposed to file the OAs in these cases including all the members who have submitted the required documents as waiting for others is delaying the filing and causing embarrassment to TSEWA. This was agreed to by all present and the decision was immediately conveyed to Brig SKS Rana.
Maj B Bikshapathy (Retd)
Item No IX. Discrepancy in Name of Spouse in PPO and Other Documents. Maj Bikshapathy said that he has come across a number of cases in which the name of the spouse as notified in PPO for Family Pension varies substantially in the documents like Aadhaar, PAN Card and Bank Accounts. The President said that if the Name of Spouse is as per the Part II orders, the Army Hq and PCDA(Pension) Allahabad are unlikely to amend the name in PPO and the more prudent course of action is to get the Civilian Documents like Aadhar and PAN Cards amended. On the strength of amended documents name in Bank Account should be got amended. He stressed on the need for ESM to check their documents and have the discrepancies rectified during their life time so that the spouses do not encounter difficulties in getting the Family Pensions.
Presidents Points.
Item No X. Less Pension for certain Personnel who retired in 2015 vis a vis OROP of 2013. The President said that some Veterans who retired in 2015 in ranks of Sub Maj and Maj Gen have brought to his notice that their Pension is less than that of OROP of 2013 for same rank and length of Qualifying Service. Initially, the President did not think it is possible, but a deeper study indicated that some veterans who got promoted very late in their terminal rank got less Pension as they did not earn any increments in that rank. He said that this anomaly would be remedied in OROP – 20108.
Item No XI. Likely OROP – 2018 with Higher Pension w.e.f. Jul 2019. The President said that after the recent announcement of Hon’ble Raksha Mantri in Secunderabad on 24 Mar 2019 that OROP will be revised in 2018, he has been receiving numerous queries from anxious veterans as to the quantum of their Pension in OROP 2018. He said that he can work out the Tables if he can get the PPOs of Veterans who retired in 2018 and proposed to collect such data. The house agreed, but it was felt that it should be made very clear that these tables are as per data available to us and may vary substantially with that of PCDA(P) Allahabad whose tables will be based on complete data available and approved by Government.
There being no further points, the meeting was closed at 11.30 am.
Brig CS Vidyasagar (Retd)
President, TSEWA