No JNVST 2011?!

All of us are aware of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act which came into effect from April 2010.As per the provisions of the Act, conducting admission test is illegal. The new law questions the Navodaya's sysytem of 'talent identification and naruture method'. Section 13 of the act bars all schools from subjecting “the child or his or her parents or guardian to any screening procedure”. The section punishes those who infringe with a fine of Rs 25,000 for the first violation and Rs 50,000 per infringement subsequently. In the absence of a proper admission test, what would be the new criteria for admiting the students? Governament of Andhra Pradesh has recently cancelled a scheduled admission test for State Residential Schools. AP govt has decided to follow wait and watch policy until Minisrry of HRD will come out with a solution for admission into Navodayas. Lets hope Ministry of HRD will get exemption from the clause and the things will go smoothly without geopardizing the next year's admission procedure.

Family Pension and Invalid Pension under New Pension System.

Govt of India has extended the benefit of family pension to the family's of employees covered under NPS, in case of their untimely death before the retirement. In case of invalidation of employees, employees will become eligible for invalid pension. The calculation of pension in both cases would be according to the 1972 pension provisions. But this benefit is provisional as the new rules are being framed. Even after the new rule, some kind of regular pension is expected in case of above circumstances.

As NPS is notified by cabinet to NVS employees, all the alllied rules also come into effect automatically. Suppose a senior employee unfortunatley looses his life, what his family gets under CPF is less than 10 lakh rupees. What will happen to his family? Had he opted for NPS, his family would be secure. We need to think about this a lot in Samiti. We have around 25 per cent employees who are going to retire within a decade. What will happen to them, if we all madly reject NPS. Are we capable of getting 1972 regular pension? Do we have it in us to go for strike?

We need to keep in mind another fact too. Already 10 per cent of us are covered under NPS.Ten per cent of vacancies are there in samiti. Another 15 per cent will retire in five years. We have been mute witnesses to the inner fights across the regions and unions! We know the fear factor that has been injected into our cadres! Inspite of all these things, is it ok to be positive? We all need to seriously ponder over these things.