Minutes of Virtual Meeting of the Core Committee of TSEWA held at 1000 hrs on 23 Jan 2021
The following members attended:
- Brig CS Vidyasagar President, in Chair
- Cmde Sudheer Parakala Vice President
- Col Dr GB Sethi General Secretary
- Lt Col Parvatheesam Treasurer
- Hony Capt B Joseph Joint Secretary
- Maj Gen SN Mukherjee President TSEWA,West Bengal
- Col Ajit Rana President TSEWA, Delhi NCR
- WO Thiruchelvam President TSEWA, Tamilnadu
- Col Jaswant Sekhawat President TSEWA, Rajasthan
- Cmde KS Sandhu President TSEWA, Mumbai Metro
- Col Srikantha Seshadri President TSEWA, Karnataka
- Cmde Ashok Kota Member
- Lt Col Dr K Bhaskar Reddy Member
- Maj Dr. B Bhikshapathy Member
The President welcomed all present in the meeting and thanked them for their efforts to attend the virtual meeting. He requested the General Secretary to commence the proceedings.
Points of Discussion
Item No I. IT Return Submission: General Secretary informed that IT Return of TSEWA had been submitted by the Chartered Accountant on 10.1.21.
Item No II. Financial Assistance to Smt Indira Arunachalam: General Secretary intimated that the cheque has been handed over to the lady and TSEWA has received the receipt for the same.
Item No III. Unwanted Mails: General Secretary expressed his concern over the repeated violation of norms by few veterans such as Cdr Sudheer Dua and Hony Capt Ranga Reddy and requested that stern action may be initiated against them.
Item No IV. Covid Vaccine Administering: General Secretary informed that ECHS Polyclinic, Secunderabad has circulated a letter for registration of the veterans and their dependents for the vaccine. However, Col Srikantha Seshadri has confirmed that there is no central policy of ECHS on this matter so far.
Item No V. NCESMO Confederation of Tamil Nadu: General Secretary appreciated the efforts of Col Jayaraj in formation of Tamil Nadu Confederation with 34 ESM organizations joining it and many more totalling about 90 ESM Organisations giving their willingness to join the Confederation. Maj Gen Shibnath Mukherjee stated that he has been able to get about 9 ESM Organisations to join NCESMO and he would form the WB State Confederation within the next 2-3 months.
Item No VI. TSEWA GBM in Jun 2021: General Secretary intimated that TSEWA GBM is likely to be held in Jun 2021 and requested Core Committee to think about the new team of Executive Committee.
Item No VII. NCESMO Functioning: General Secretary that the duration of the present committee is over and new committee should be constituted. He requested Brig CS Vidyasagar to consider taking over the responsibility of President of NCESMO, so that it can be made more effective and result oriented. Core Committee requested Brig CS Vidyasagar to seriously consider the proposal because the two-year tenure of Brig Kartar Singh the present incumbent is already over. Cmde Parakala suggested that a meeting of all the constituents of NCESMO may be called for and a new team elected. The President thanked the Core Committee for the faith reposed in him but regretted his inability to take on the assignment due to his health. He suggested that Brig Kartar Singh will be approached to convene a meeting of the constituents of NCESMO to elect a new managing committee to carry out its activities.
Item No VIII. TSEWA Office Building: General Secretary informed that he along with TSEWA Office Staff visited the proposed site of building to be purchased by TSEWA at an approximate cost of Rs 23 lacs. He proposed to have an interest free loan of about 15 lacs from TSEWA Corpus Fund, which can be in refunded by reduced running expenditure of TSEWA office and donations from members. President of TSEWA suggested that a bulk SMS be sent to all members seeking donations. The President said that the emails are limited to about 2000 members only and hence the bulk SMS would be a better option to reach out to all the Members. He further said that post-COVID, the real estate prices in Hyderabad are likely to see a steep escalation and that we should move fast to clinch the deal with the builder.
Item No IX. Charity from Madhuri Sewa Fund: Cmde Sudheer Parakala, Chairman Charity Division informed that one lakh earlier remitted by Col Nagesh Gupta to a wrong account was returned by the bank and only Rs. 20,000/- was transferred to TSEWA Account to meet the urgent requirement of Ms. Sandhya who is required to pay the Tuition/Exam fee for her III Year degree course. He further intimated that TSEWA has not received any recommendations except for one case from Col Ajit Rana. He once again requested all State Presidents of TSEWA to send the recommendations as per the standard format of Charity Division so that Col Nagesh Gupta could be requested to transfer the balance amount to TSEWA.
Item No X. NEWS Letter of TSEWA: Hony Capt B Joseph suggested to publish the News Letter of TSEWA so that good works being done by TSEWA gets the due publicity. General Secretary assured that it will be published before the next GBM.
Item No XI. Status of AFT Cases: Maj Dr. B Bhikshapathy has pointed out that although it was decided by the Core Committee to send a monthly mail to TSEWA mail groups regarding the latest status of AFT Cases, it is not being implemented. Core Committee decided not to send any such mail as there is hardly any change in the status of cases due to non-functional status of the AFTs. Col Ajit Rana informed that the case regarding enhanced pension to the widow of deceased veteran for seven years or 67 years of age was discussed with Maj Navdeep Singh who assured that a thorough study would be done through RTI/Policy letters before filing the case in AFT.
Item No XII. Payment of Arrears in BB2 Case.Col Srikantha Seshadri mentioned that the Army HQ/PCDAs are not paying the arrears to the beneficiaries and insisting on ink-signed copies of the judgement every time the case is taken up. The President informed that the copies of the judgement were sent to all concerned authorities and that the individuals should pursue payment of arears with the Army Headquarters and PCDAs.
Item No XIII. Non-Payment of Old Age Enhanced Pension. Col Shekhawatinformed that some of the CPPCs are not automatically crediting the enhanced pension to the widows who have reached 80 years age stating that the DOB is not properly recorded although there are clear directives that the enhance pension should be credited on next 01 Jan where the exact Date is not mentioned in the PPO. The President requested that such cases be taken up with the Record Office for issue of Part-II Orders and issue of Corr. PPO from respective Pension Sanctioning Authorities.
Item No XIV. Appointment of Veterans in Zilla Sainik Boards.WO Thiru Chelvam enquired about the policy on appointment of veterans in various Zilla Sainik Boards. The President informed that the Dept of Sainik Welfar is a purely State Government department with sharing of expenditure by Central Govt to an extent of 50% and in certain states like in North East the Central Govt bears out 75% of expenditure. The State Govts their own policy on recruitment, promotion and retirement besides the pay and allowances. Generally the Officers in the Department are veterans and civilians. The Govt of Andhra Pradesh and Telengana have policy of reserving 2/3 posts of Officers in the Department with veterans and balance one third by civilian employees. As far as the subordinate staff the policy in these two states is to give reservation of only 2%. In some other states the entire staff is veterans only. However, since 50% of the funding is done by the respective State Governments, they issue orders amending the rules as decided internally.
There being no further points, the meeting was closed at 13:30 PM.
Brig CS Vidyasagar (Retd)
President, TSEWA