To,

The Chairman

7th Central Pay Commission

New Delhi

Sub:Representation by Delhi Administration Subordinate Services (DASS) cadre

Sir,

Before we present a submission about the demands of Delhi Administration Subordinate Services (DASS) cadre it would be worthwhile to submit some facts about the NCT of Delhi and its Government.

Government of NCT of Delhi has a unique status among States and Union Territories. While it has been classified as a Union Territory in Schedule I of the Constitution it has also been granted certain functions of State. NCT of Delhi has its own Legislative Assembly which can legislate on all subjects enumerated in the State list except subjects at serial number 1, 2 and 18 and 64, 65 and 66 in so much as these pertain to subjects mentioned at 1, 2 and 18. Apart from the legal perspective, position of Delhi is also unique in a number of ways. It is the national capital and hosts most of the institutions of national and international importance. Demographically, its population is much larger than any of the Union Territories and is in fact larger than some of the states. The demographic profile is also unique in the sense that its population is highly diversified and the city has a continuous influx of immigrants from other parts of the country.

This unique status has posed many administrative challenges and the Government of NCT of Delhi has been constantly making efforts to effectively meet these challenges and to showcase the administration of Delhi as an example of others to follow. Government of Delhi has been the first state to bring in legislation to ensure time bound delivery of services. It is common knowledge that efficiency, commitment and transparency in the Departments of Government of NCT of Delhi is of a much higher level as compared to the various states. Needless to say, this has put the employees under constant pressure. Employees do not have any complaint against this pressure but they do expect a decent and dignified pay structure in lieu of the work discharged.

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Delhi Administration Subordinate Services (DASS) Cadre

Delhi Administration Subordinate Services (DASS) is a cadre manning junior and middle level positions in various Departments. It has four Grades which occupy different posts in various Departments. The Cadre has two entry levels. Details of these grades and levels are as under:

Sl.No. / Grade / Indicative details about posts*
1. / Grade-IV / Entry level post /
  • LDCs in the Secretariat
  • LDCs in other Departments and field offices.
  • Sub-Inspector in the Department of Food & Supplies
  • Sub-Inspector in Excise Department.

2. / Grade-III / Promotional post from Grade-IV /
  • UDC in Secretariat discharging duties as are discharged by assistants in the same way UDCs are shouldering the same work and responsibilities as compare to Assistants.
  • UDC in other Departments and Field Offices.
  • Inspectors in Weights & Measures Department
  • Sub-Inspectors in Excise Department

3. / Grade-II / Filled up both by Direct entry as well as promotion from Grade-III /
  • Assistant in Secretariat
  • Assistant in other Department & Field Offices
  • Inspector in Department of Trade & Taxes and Excise Department
  • Inspector in Food & Supplies Department and Weights & Measures Department
  • Naib-Tehsildars in Revenue Department

4. / Grade-I / Promotion from Grade-II /
  • Section Officers/Office Supdts in Secretariat.
  • Section Officers/Office Supdts in other Departments and Field offices.
  • AVATO in Department of Trade & Taxes
  • FSO in Food & Civil Supplies Department.
  • Tehsildar in the Department of Revenue

5. / Senior members of the Service are given ad-hoc promotion on posts equivalent to Entry Grade of DANICS. /
  • Deputy Secretary in Secretariat
  • Dy. Director/Admn. Officers in other Departments and Field Offices.
  • VATO in the Department of Trade & Taxes
  • Asstt. Commissioners in Food & Supplies Department
  • SDM in the Revenue Department.

Nature of duties

The details given about posts occupied by the employees of DASS cadre at each is indicative only and more details have been avoided for the sake of brevity. However, even this indicative list gives a fairly good idea of different posts occupied by these employees. All these posts carry a different work profile. If compared with the Central Secretariat Service, the members of CSS perform secretariat functions and contribution in policy making by analyzing various reports from the field offices, commissions and other organizations. Their interpretation of various issues with respect to the prevailing rules and regulations provides a balanced viewpoint to the top level Government machinery to enable them to take appropriate decisions. This was one of the reason of for the CSS cadre having an edge over the other field offices.

However subsequent to the formation of the Government of NCT of Delhi being formed and being given powers to legislate on most of the issues enumerated in the State list all these functions are being performed by the staff posted in the Secretariat of the Government of NCT of Delhi where these posts are being occupied by the employees of DASS cadre. Hence, the employees of this cadre are performing all the functions being taken by the officials of CSS in the Central Secretariat.

Apart from this, the members of DASS cadre are posted in various Departments and field offices where they handle various functions at the implementation level. In their executive functions, the members of the service man the taxation and revenue earning Departments like Trade & Taxes and State Excise Department where their nature of work is similar to the taxation departments of the Govt. of India like the Departments of Income Tax, Central

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Excise. Apart from these they also man those Departments which are outside the purview of the Government of India. They man the Land Revenue Department which is crucial for maintaining of land records. They also man other service delivery departments like Education, Food & Supplies Department, Department of Weights & Measures etc.

The Sixth Pay Commission while considering the issue of parity between the Secretariat and field offices has pointed out in para 3.1.3 that “Internationally also, there is an increasing emphasis on strengthening the delivery lines and decentralization with greater role being assigned at delivery points which actually determines the benefit that the common citizen is going to derive out of any policy initiative of the Government. The field offices are at thecutting edge of administration and may, in most cases, determinewhether a particular policy turns out to be a success or a failure interms of actual benefit to the consumer.” Hence, the field offices are equally important for Government functioning and have been rightly given due importance by the Sixth Pay Commission.

While comparing the functions of the employees of the DASS with the employees of the Central Government it is pertinent to mention that employees of CSS look after secretarial, policy making and legislative functions. They do not perform any implementing role. Similarly, employees of field offices under the Government of India perform only the implementing part and do not perform any policy making and legislative functions. On the other hand, the employees of DASS cadre perform both these functions. All the DASS Cadre officials are laterally transferred to any of the Departments under the Government of NCT of Delhi normally within a period of 2-5 years and hence every employee is required to perform completely different nature of duties after every transfer. This provides a unique diversity to their functioning which requires extra effort on their part which needs to be suitably compensated by providing them an appropriate compensation package which is at least one step higher than the CSS.

Historic postion vis-à-vis the CSS

Out of four grades in DASS, there has been a historic parity between DASS and CSS at the level of Grade-IV of DASS with LDC of CSS and of Grade-III of DASS with the UDC of CSS. Parity at higher levels was not so clearly established and DASS employees had always been raising this demand at various levels. The demands were partly accepted by way of up gradation of scales of specific posts. The matter was also considered by the Sixth Pay Commission which had made a recommendation on this issue (Para 7.57.5) and granted the parity between the CSS and staff of Union Territories. Although the demand of the employees and recommendations of the Sixth Pay

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Commission were accepted and approved by the Cabinet and LG of the NCT of Delhi there was some confusion among the authorities regarding the competence of the Delhi Government and the matter has been again referred to the Union Govt. Due to this, the recommendations as per the para 7.57.5 of the report of the Sixth Pay Commission have not been implemented as yet with respect to the DASS employees. One of the reasons for this was that there was no specific recommendations with respect to the DASS cadre which is very much required keeping in view the unique legal and administrative status of the NCT of Delhi.

Other Issues

Apart from the above stated facts which are specific to the DASS employees we also wish to make some submissions on some other issues which are common to other employees also.

  • Family Pension is granted as a social obligation to the family of a Govt. Servant after the death of the employee after superannuation or during service period. Its an open truth that if the bread earner of a family leaves his family in case of death in young age, he leaves so many responsibilities in front of the family to be shouldered with half the salary, which were hard to fulfill even with his full salary. In our own backyard Haryana, family pensioner get full salary till the date of superannuation whereas the employees of Central Govt. have been ignored of this just culture.
  • Assured Career Progression was instituted by the 5th Pay Commission to safeguard the future prospect of the employees who were facing stagnation in their cadre and in the scheme 2 up gradations in the promotional hierarchy with an interval of 12 years but it did not yielded the desired result and acknowledging this the 6th Pay Commission recommended 3 up gradations with an interval of 10 years instead of 2 but the implementing authorities misinterpreted the whole recommendation and started to give next higher up gradation ignoring the hierarchy ladder which intern made it worse then the previous one.
  • Dearness Allowance is granted to neutralize inflation largely on the food basket and keeping in view the expenditure priorities for differently paid employees i.e. share of expenditure on food articles is higher for the least paid employee as compared to the highest paid officer. So it will be appropriate to adequately support the lowest paid official against the food inflation so that he may not disturb the expenditure pattern due to the inflation in food basket and may not be compelled to compromise

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the expenditure on the education of his/her loved ones and on account of the savings for the darker days.

  • House Rent Allowance is granted to offset the expenditure incurred by the employee on housing. As is common knowledge housing in Delhi has become extremely costly and present HRA @ 30% does no longer suffice the housing requirement of a Government employee, therefore it is necessary to make an upward revision of the HRA by making it comparable to market rent of a house of appropriate status. DA must be granted on the HRA as the employees living in private houses are discriminated with those living in Govt. Accommodations as the expenditure incurred by the employees living in Govt. Accommodations is limited to the amount of HRA and the lesser fortunate employees who could not got the Govt. Accommodation have to pay market rent which soars with the level of inflation. Further the DA quotient of the HRA must also be put out of the ambit of income tax to bring at par the lesser fortunate employees.
  • Leave Travel Concession is being granted every four years to the serving employees. This four year practice is almost half a century old and in the mean time the living culture has changed drastically so to live up to the changed atmosphere and work culture it would be appropriate to grant one months salary every year in lieu of LTC by doing this the Govt. may put clutches to the inflated LTC packages. In a number of PSUs a fixed amount is paid to the employees after a fixed period. It is further stated that no benefit of LTC/LTA is available to the retired employees whereas the retirees in Haryana the closest state of the capital enjoys one month pension every four year.
  • Child Care Leave is granted to a female employee for taking care of child. While this is a laudable concept it needs to be considered that in some cases the responsibility of taking care of a child can fall upon a male Government employee. In the present day society where in a large number of cases both the parents are working a husband has to equally devote time to the child. In some cases like the death of wife or in case of legal separation the responsibility of rearing up the child completely falls upon the father of the child. However, in both these cases, the father of the child does not have the benefit of extra time provided by the Child Care Leave. Hence it would be justified if the benefit of Child Care Leave is extended to the father of the child.

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  • Field Duties are performed by a large number of employees of DASS cadre who are deployed on service delivery/implementation assignments. These assignments require a lot of travelling to be undertaken for which neither official conveyance nor any allowance is given to the employees. Thus the employee is forced to incur expenditureout of his own pocket for performing official duties. Therefore it is justified that some conveyance allowance is given to employees performing these kinds of duties.

Requests

  1. Full salary as pension to the family of the employee died in service till the date of superannuation.
  2. Clear instruction for grant of ACP in the hierarchy be made.
  3. In view of the diverse nature of functions performed by the employees of DASS cadre which has made its functions more complex than any other Department of the Government of India we request that employees of DASS cadre may be dealt separately and they may be given scale one step higher than those of CSS.
  4. DA should be granted at slab rate.
  5. HRA should be made comparable to the market rent and in no case should be less than 50% of the basic pay plus grade pay plus DA and the same be exempted from income tax.
  6. One months salary should be paid as Leave Travel Allowance and this should be made available every year for serving employees and every two years to the retired Government servants as well.
  7. Child Care Leave should be allowed for the father as well.
  8. Conveyance allowance for performing field duties may be given to those DASS cadre employees who are working on posts requiring regular field visits.

Yours sincerely

(Deepak Bhardwaj)

General Secretary