Himachal BDO's to protest against Government

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India, Republic of (Free-Press-Release.com) October 2, 2011 -- PRESS NOTE

There has been a steady and continuous deterioration in the status of the Block Development Officers over the past many years and despite our making continuous humble representations to appropriate authorities our requests remained un-heard till date only because we have been behaving in a highly decent manner and had faith in Govt. that they will correct the anomalous situation sooner or later and believing in this fact, we honestly kept implementing large number of poverty alleviation, self employment, wage employment and social empowerment programmes of the Govt. And you might be aware that Himachal State had been winning many national awards of repute over past many years only because of efficiency and high degree of hard work and commitment that the BDO’s of the state have put in, while implementing the programmes of the Govt. Himachal has been at number one in implementing 20 point programme in whole of the country continuously for last three years. Similarly the state has won accolades for Implementation of Polythene hatao Paryavaran Bachao Abhiyan,implementation of Total sanitation Campaign, Registeration & implementation under Rashtriya Swasthaya Bima Yojana only because of the efforts of the BDO’s.
The association has been putting its demands before the government amicably & the Hon’ble Chief Minister has also assured the association in the past that the demands will be looked into sympathetically.
Some of the demands of the association are:
1) Increase in promotion Quota for induction into HP Administrative Services.

2) Creation of departmental Promotion Avenues- allocation of post of Project Director (DRDA) to the BDO’s, creation of departmental Hierarchy & filling the posts from the BDO’s cadre by promotion on the analogy of other departments OR Creation of HP Development Services (HDS)
3) Declaring the post of BDO as Technical services.
4) Designating BDO as Chief Executive Officer of Panchayat Samiti
5) Designating separate Public information Officer for Gram Panchayats under RTI ( BDO in HP is PIO for 50-80 institutions)
Much pains have been inflicted upon BDO’s by causing regular degradation in their status during past two decades? The brief of some of the glaring facts is explained in a very precise manner –

 Prior to the year 1994, the quota of promotion for single BDO category for induction into HAS was percent (only BDO category) and it was percent for Tehsildars. Therefore, after putting in a service of 8-9 years BDO’s normally used to get promotion into HAS. But this mechanism of promotion could not be continued for long and a conspiracy was plotted by some selfish officers holding high offices in the Govt.

 In the year 1996, 13 more categories of officers of HAS allied services having total strength of about 300 were added in the promotional quota, which was earlier available for BDO’s but the promotional quota of 22 percent, which was available for Tehsildars remained intact. Ultimately, the quota of promotion into HAS of BDO’s remained less than 5 percent. However, if the Govt. had to add more categories of officers for promotion into HAS, it would have rationalized it on the basis of cadre strength of the officers in the state after taking the quota of Tehsildars and BDO’s together at 50 percent but only BDO’s were made scapegoat and Tehsildars were rewarded.
 The scale of pay of BDO’s in the year 1994 was 2410-4000 and that of direct HAS was 2200-4000. On revision of scales in 1996, the BDO’s got 7880-11600, equivalent to HAS officers, but after six months only it was reduced to 7000. Our pay scales were fixed at lower level to that of Superintendents, Horticulture Development officers, Agriculture Development Officers and Assistant Engineers working in our offices.
 All the officers like Assistant Engineers and even teachers of school and colleges have been given “Time scale” but BDO is given static scale.

 Post of Project officer was promotional post on the analogy of District Revenue Officers promoted from Tehsildars, but in the year 1999, it was converted into secondment post and all the financial benefits were withdrawn. But DRO is still a promotional post alongwith all usual promotional benefits.
 Earlier, Project Officer used to report directly to Deputy Commissioner, but in the year 1999, all ADM’s in HP was given additional charge of Project Director and Project Officer (DRDA) was placed under him, imposing additional level of subordination. However on the other hand DRO is still directly under DC.
 The workload multiplied drastically during last 2 decades but the staff strength almost remained the same and on the other hand the power and authority and system of career progression was put under high level of steady erosion.

 Even earlier, BDO, used to be controlling officer for all the allied departments, but all struggled hard to get higher positions and pay scales and got free from the control of BDO.

 You might be aware that all the line departments, like agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandary, industries, and even PWD, I & PH, HPSEB and almost all the departments have their own departmental well defined promotional avenues but in case of rural development department we are still slaves of DC, ADM, SDM and what to say more about it.We are not blaming any particular politician, party or any bureaucrat rather we are concerned with our demands met in a time bound manner and this can be done only by the way of lodging strongest protest because our humble requests have not borne fruit.
The association has therefore decided that it will not continue with the present system or would like to go for the second option of lodging strong protest with the Govt. by showing the worth of what we can do, if our genuine demands are not addressed in a time-bound manner. If the present trend is allowed to continue for long, the new entrant as BDO of today will not get promotion for more than 20 years. You may note that the BDO’s of 1994 batch are still looking and waiting for promotion, whereas Tehsildars of 1997 have got promoted into HAS.

The Block development officers of the state have started the protest by wearing Black Badges while working from 2nd October 2011 onwards. The BDO’s in the state superivised the Gram Sabha meetings wearing black Badges on 2nd October. If the demands of the cadre are not met we have decided to go on mass- casual leave on 12th october. If the demands of the cadre are not met all the Block Development officers will go on Indefinite leave afterwards.

-----sd----- -----sd-------
H S Rana, Subhash Gautam,
President, General Secretary,
HP Block Development Officers’ Association HP Block Development Officers’ Association
9418010880 9418483498