World Environment Day- 2009

World Environment Day (WED) was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.

Commemorated yearly on 5 June, WED is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action. The day's agenda is to:

1. Give a human face to environmental issues;
2. Empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development;
3. Promote an understanding that communities are pivotal to changing attitudes towards environmental issues;
4. Advocate partnership which will ensure all nations and peoples enjoy a safer and more prosperous future.

The theme for WED 2009 is 'Your Planet Needs You-UNite to Combat Climate Change'. It reflects the urgency for nations to agree on a new deal at the crucial climate convention meeting in Copenhagen some 180 days later in the year, and the links with overcoming poverty and improved management of forests.

This year’s host is Mexico which reflects the growing role of the Latin American country in the fight against climate change, including its growing participation in the carbon markets.

Mexico is also a leading partner in UNEP's Billion Tree Campaign. The country, with the support of its President and people, has spearheaded the pledging and planting of some 25 per cent of the trees under the campaign. Accounting for around 1.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the country is demonstrating its commitment to climate change on several fronts.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon states that the WED celebration will “further underline Mexico's determination to manage natural resources and deal with the most demanding challenge of the 21st century – climate change.”

GOI clarification dt 18/05/2009 for pensioners/ family pensioners

Modification in eligibility criteria and procedure for call of tender for specialised works- CPWD

Composite tender- Modidification CPWD

Clarification regarding Plastic card for individual CGHS beneficiaries

GOI resolution on Public Interest Disclosure & Protection of Informer

Usage of Inter-bank window for customer transactions

RBI/2008-09/476
DPSS (CO) RTGS No.1959/04.04.002/2008-2009

May 11, 2009

Chairman and Managing Director /
Chief Executive Officer of all banks participating in RTGS

Dear Sir,

Usage of Inter-bank window for customer transactions

We invite a reference to our earlier circular No.RBI/2008-09/362 dated January 28, 2009 advising extension of cut off timings for various types of RTGS transactions.

1. It is brought to our notice that many RTGS participants are routing RTGS customer payments in the inter-bank session i.e., after the customer window is closed. This is probably done to accommodate late transactions of high net worth customers.
   
   
2. We advise that different time windows are prescribed for different types of RTGS transactions taking various things in to consideration. For example, a gap of one hour and thirty minutes is kept between customer timings and interbank timings to ensure that a customer transaction where credit cannot be afforded to the beneficiary would have to be returned to the sender’s account within one hour and thirty minutes. Therefore, routing of customer transactions in the inter-bank session is a violation of return discipline since the gap of one hour and thirty minutes is not maintained.
   
   
3. All RTGS participants are, therefore, advised to strictly adhere to the RTGS procedural guidelines and desist from the practice of pushing customer transactions in the interbank mode. Violations, if any, brought to our notice would be viewed seriously and would attract penalty under Section 30 of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007(51 of 2007).
   
   
4. Please acknowledge receipt of the circular.

Yours faithfully,

(G. Padmanabhan)
Chief General Manager

Issue of analogue insulin to CGHS beneficiaries, GOI OM Dated 13/05/2009

clarification regarding no change in pension rule w.e.f 2/9/2008

Fairness & trasparency in maintenance & prepration of Annual performance appraisal report ( formally ACR) w.e.f 1/4/2009

Classification of post as per 6th pay commission

Helpline from CGHS

Tel. 011-66667777

e-mail- helpline-cghs@nic.in

Beneficiaries can contact the Helpline by phone or e-mail for

(1) any information about CGHS including Medical Reimbursement Claims

(2) any Grievance or Complaint

CGHS Helpline operates on all working days from 9:30 A.M. to 5:30 PM.

Additional relief on death/ disability of Government servants covered by the NPS

Closing of Central Government Offices in connection with election- Guidelines

Video conferencing to help RTI applicants

CHENNAI: For the past three years, M Sivaraj, an RTI activist from Vellore, has been spending Rs 1,000 every month towards travel and other expenses. The former tahsildar travels at least 900km a month to appear at hearings conducted by the State Information Commission (SIC) at its headquarters in Chennai.

With SIC planning to introduce video conferencing for petitioners, Sivaraj and other petitioners will have less trouble in future.

The hi-tech facility funded by the Union government will be introduced after the general elections. "The contract has been awarded to the Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), for development. We hope that petitioners will not have to travel all the way from different parts of the state to Chennai, spending time and money. Officials, too, need not reclaim amounts from the public exchequer for travel expenses," SIC chief commissioner S Ramakrishnan told The Times of India.

With the district headquarters in Tamil Nadu having video-conferencing facilities at the collectorates, it would take only a few months to stabilise the system, Ramakrishnan added.

The plan envisages the commission having a state-wide area network connectivity from ELCOT's data centre in Taramani or the common service centre at the DMS campus in Teynampet. ELCOT will install equipment and related infrastructure, costing Rs 13 lakh.

On an average, SIC receives 40,000 petitions every year, the highest in India, seeking details from various government departments. Almost 90% of the petitions come from the southern districts. About 30 cases are taken up for hearing daily.

"If such devices are not introduced forthwith, there will be deterioration in services rendered by the commission," Ramakrishnan pointed out.

The commission has six commissioners, besides the chief commissioner, to look into appeals.

The commission is holding talks with the Centre for Good Governance (CGG), a central government agency, to develop software modules for designing a website, complete with the decisions and cause list so that applicants from any part of the state can get updated information on cases.

It also plans to include success stories and the status of applications on the website, with the application status being conveyed through SMSes, too.

"The decision to seek CGG support came about after the National Informatics Centre, which designed the SIC website, failed in uploading relevant data over the past four months," official sources said.

The urgency in dealing with a flood of applications has put SIC in a spot. With only 15 stenographers available for administrative work, analysing information has become a problem area.

julie.mariappan@timesgroup.com

Govt staff earn 14.82% on NPS

Central government employees who joined as a part of the contributory New Pension Scheme (NPS) have earned a weighted average return of 14.82 per cent during 2008-09, the first year when three fund managers managed a corpus of around Rs 2,000 crore.

This is in contrast to the annual 8 per cent returns between January 2004 and March 2008 when the government had not transferred the money to the three fund managers – SBI Pension Fund, UTI Retirement Solutions and LIC Pension Fund.

The Centre moved all employees joining from January 1, 2004 to NPS, where they have to chip in with a contribution of 10 per cent of their basic salary with a matching contribution made by the government. While the money was being deducted, it was parked in a government account and earned a fixed rate of return.

Last year, based on the financial bids, the government allocated 55 per cent to SBI, which earned 16 per cent on the corpus managed by it, followed by UTI, which earned a return of around 13 per cent on 40 per cent of the corpus and LIC, which generated returns of around 12 per cent on the remaining corpus. Last week, the allocation was changed based on last year’s performance (see table).

While the corpus will increase this year, partly due to higher contribution and also due to the release of some of the arrears following the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendations, the equity investment is also expected to go up.

At present, around 5 per cent of the corpus is invested in equities against the permissible limit of 15 per cent.

“Initially, fund managers were slow on investment in equities and invested significant amounts in bank deposits. But now, they will step up equity investment, also because the overall environment has improved,” said a source associated with the asset allocation.

This year onwards, the fund management fee is also going to decrease to 0.0009 per cent (or 0.09 basis points), in line with the pension scheme for non-government employees, as against up to 5 basis points last year.

In addition, state governments are expected to join the scheme. While 21 states have shown their willingness to join NPS, none of them have started releasing the funds as some of them, unlike the Centre, are reluctant to bear the costs, such as those related to the record-keeping agency.

courtesy: Business Standard

Revised telephone/ broadband/ mobile reimbursment of CSIR Scientist/ Technical Officers/ CCO

Things investors need to know about New Pension Schemes

New Pension Schemes (NPS) are in news for quite some time now. With India finally gearing up to have its own government-regulated pension plan, on the lines of the ‘401K-retirement plan’ in the US, the excitement hovering around NPS is obvious.

While the scheme is already operational for central govt employees, its opening for general public on May 1, 2009. Unlike the traditional retirement solutions, such as PPF and EPF; NPS is not a defined benefit, but rather a defined contribution plan. Thus, while investment in PPF and EPF attract a fixed rate of interest, returns from NPS will be market determined.

The market here, however, is not confined to equity alone, but includes corporate bonds and government securities. Investment in these papers is to be actively managed by fund managers. Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) have designated six asset management companies (AMCs) for the purpose.

So, does it imply that NPS is just another mutual fund scheme?

Though the NPS will be managed by fund houses, the autonomy lies with the PFRDA. While AMCs take investment decisions for NPS, their operational freedom shall be confined to the guidelines issued by PFRDA from time to time. Again, while an MF investor can enter and exit an scheme at free will, NPS will bind them till the retirement age of 58 years. The current guidelines do not permit a pre-mature withdrawal or any loan against the investment in NPS.

The onus of deciding the structure of investments and selecting the fund house has, however, been left to the investor. The investor is free to choose the right mix of equity (E), corporate bonds (C) and government securities (G) in his/her portfolio. Alternatively, investor can choose auto option, wherein his investment in NPS will divided in pre-determined proportion of 15% (E), 45% (C) and 40% (G). In the case of automatic allocation, the entire investment will be equally distributed among all six fund managers in the first year. From second year onwards, however, the allocation will be pro-rated on the basis of the first year’s performance.

NPS can also be distinguished from an MF scheme in terms of its cost structure. While an MF scheme charges an entry-load of about 2.25% and an average management charge of 1.5%, NPS carries a bare minimum fee of 0.0009%. Virtually free; as one might put it! But hold on. For, while NPS may prima facie appear an art of charity, investors would do well to note that there is never a free lunch.

NPS requires maintenance of all records and the same will be done by NSDL, which will act as the central record keeping agency (CAR). Each investor will thus be required to pay NSDL an account opening charge of Rs 50. Besides, there will be a maintenance charge of Rs 350 per year and an additional charge of Rs 10 per transaction.

PFRDA has also appointed selected banks as point of presence (POPs) to facilitate quick and hassle-free transactions. However, these services are not free either. According to an industry source, POPs will also charge an investor an account opening fee of Rs 20 and an additional charge of Rs 20 per transaction. This implies that an investor seeking to invest Rs 500 per month will actually end up paying around Rs 560 per month. That’s nearly 11% transaction cost, considerably higher than 8% return offered by PPF.

So does this render NPS more costly visà-vis an MF scheme?

The current cost structure of NPS is as good as fixed in nature, while that of an MF is a percentage of investment. Thus, the higher the investment, the higher would be the charges in case of an MF scheme (See Table). Given the current cost structure, NPS appears to be more beneficial to those with a higher amount of periodic investment.

Another factor that needs major consideration is the tax treatment. NPS does not enjoy any tax benefits, either at the investment stage or at the time of maturity. This makes it less attractive vis-à-vis other retirement plans available in the market. While PFRDA is understood to have approached the government to grant NPS the tax status of (exempt-exempt-exempt) EEE, the fact that PFRDA bill is yet to be approved by Parliament may procrastinate the process. Thus, while the step in the right direction has been taken, a lot needs to be done to make NPS as competitive as 401K.
Courtesy : TOI

Tree Tracking goes Hi-tech in India

A team of botanists in Mumbai are planning to map trees with the help of GPS based etchnology. Environmentalist, Ramesh Madav and his team, who have founded Terracon Ecotech Pvt. Ltd, will be out with equipment that can determine the exact location of a tree using global positioning system, or GPS, a satellite-based technology typically used in vehicle navigation and location-based information search.

Each unit, costing around INR 85,000, records the latitude and longitude of a tree, achieving an accuracy of within 5m. In addition, the botanists will record other details such as the height, canopy and condition of each tree in digital format, all of which will be transferred to a master information system that will plot the data on maps. This will make it easier to audit data and regulate illegal or irregular tree felling. The company has signed a contract with Thane's municipal corporation to conduct a tree census for the district over the next few months.

The company is currently building a proprietary software platform called Vruksha Sharad to map and analyse the tree data more effectively. It also wants to increase its current team of 60 field officers, each a qualified botanist, to around 200.

'Go green': New IT Mantra

On the occasion of the Earth Day that was served April 22, 2009 most of IT companies pledge to conserve the environment's resources and save energy costs in the bargain. According to the study conducted by IDC in the Asia-Pacific region, 18 percent of the organisation consider the greenness of the IT suppliers before making a selection, and another 30 per cent are expected to do so in the near future.

Maharashtra-based Chitale Diary, for instance, consolidated its IT environment into three physical servers (from 10) in one data centre. These servers host 20 virtual servers running multiple applications and operating systems. With a virtualised environment, the firm reduced hardware acquisition costs by 50 per cent, server deployment time came down from three weeks to a few hours. And it brought in 50 per cent reduction in power, cooling, and real estate. IBM has committed over $1 billion to the Big Green Innovation initiative launched in 2007. The project focuses on intelligent energy (smart grids and alternative energy), carbon management, water management, and computational modelling. Intel, on its part, integrated 'Design for Environment' principles into its production.

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI), co-founded by Intel and being led in India by Nasscom, CII, TERI and WWF works globally with manufacturers and consumers to increase the energy efficiency of personal computers (PCs) and servers by 50 per cent with the help of power-management tools. Cisco has also launched Energy Wise, a technology that makes it possible for businesses to reduce carbon emissions, by managing energy consumption of devices on the network when they are not in use. While Wipro has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with WWF to collaborate in several areas of sustainability like the application of IT solutions to ecological sustainability. IT companies are aiming to reduce CO2 emission by 54 million tonnes a year and cut energy costs by $5.5 billion by 2010.

Courtesy: e Gov