As the general elections are round the corner, the State Cabinet on Monday approved some pro-employees’ proposals which would benefit the State administrative cadre officials and teachers.
Briefing mediapersons after a Cabinet meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the State Secretariat on Monday, Chief Secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra said that the State Government decided to restructure the Odisha Administrative Cadre to provide more promotional and career advancement avenues, revise medical reimbursement and referral policy for the State Government employees, rationalize the Grant-in-Aid policy for the Block Grant teachers and ME teachers and provide promotional benefits to assistant engineers.
He said that as many as eight items were discussed and approved by the Cabinet. Disclosing further, Mohapatra said that the Cabinet decentralised the existing medical reimbursement policy for the State Government employees. As per the revised policy, henceforth apart from the Medical Education and Training Director, the Chief District Medical Officers (CDMOs) and the Superintendent of the Medical Colleges will have the authority to refer the State Government employees and officials for treatment to any of the listed private medical institutions, including outside hospitals for better medical care.
The Cabinet, he said, has also decided the rate of reimbursement of medical bills to be applicable in case of employees under treatment in the hospitals both in and outside the State. The rates would be provided as per the Central Government health service parameters. The reimbursement facilities can be availed in case of 1,298 diseases. Besides, the employees can avail the Odisha State Treatment Fund for their treatment in 21 approved hospitals.
The Cabinet also approved a proposal to restructure the ESI Medical Service Cadre rules allowing promotional facilities to the doctors without increasing their cadre strength of 200. Now, the Junior Class-I doctors and Senior Class-I doctors would be promoted to the rank of Joint Director-I and II, respectively at par with their counterpart in Odisha Medical Service cadre.
The Cabinet approved the proposal to equate the status of the State Election Commissioner (SEC) with the Odisha Human Rights Commissioner by amending the appointment and service condition rules -1994 in the Panchayati Raj Department. The SEC would get the facility at part with the Odisha High Court Judges. The status of the SEC was upgraded to enable him to function efficiently, the Chief Secretary said.
The Cabinet also approved a proposal for restructuring of the OAS cadre to avoid stagnation in career advancement and promotion. As per the restructuring of the 1,416 strong cadres, the number of Junior Class-I posts have been reduced to 854 to allow the rest 130 posts for upgradation in four scales. While 90 posts would be given time scale status, 25 posts for super-time scale, 11 posts for super time administrative scale, four posts would be earmarked for special secretary grade.
In another decision, the Cabinet decided to allow upgradation of assistant engineers to the Assistant Executive Engineers. The decision would benefit as many as 2,000 assistant engineers working in the Water Resources, Works, Energy, Rural Development and Urban Development departments.
The Chief Secretary said that the Cabinet had relaxed the eligibility criteria in case of 478 high schools to get Block Grant and allowed 60 per cent GIA in the first year irrespective of years of service. Besides, 110 girls’ high schools which were deprived of grant would get the 100 per cent of Block Grant regardless of their eligibility.
Mohapatra said the decision was taken by the Cabinet by honouring the recommendation of the Group of Ministers (GoM). As many as 998 high schools including 420 new high Schools would be benefited under the new relaxed BG norms. Considering the hardship of the teachers in the high schools serving for long period, the GoM had recommended that the criteria of eligibility be relaxed. Earlier the teachers were illegible to get Block Grant to the tune of 60 per cent after six years of service, 75 per cent after 8 years if they fulfilled the criteria of 40 students in each class in the non-tribal districts and 25 in the tribal districts. But the Cabinet reduced the strength to 30 and 20, respectively under the new norms. Besides, the high schools were given the opportunity to make out the infrastructure deficiency within next two years time.
He said that though 1,982 high schools were selected to get the Block Grant under the GIA policy introduced in January 31, 2013, 478 schools could not fulfil the criteria and had not been extended the grant.
The Cabinet also decided to bring the Zila Parishad teachers to the elementary cadres for their career progression. Similarly, it was also decided to give full GIA to 916 ME schools which have completed six academic sessions.