Postal Assistant/Stg Assistant- Revised recruitment rules 2011

Department of Posts has notified Department of Posts ( Postal Assistants and Sorting Assistants) (Group-C Non-gazetted) Recruitment Rules, 2011.  These have been published in Official Gazette on 3.11.2011.  They come into force from the date of publication in Official Gazette.

For direct recruitment 10+2 or 12 Standard candidates with atleast 60% marks with English as compulsory subject [ excluding vocational stream], 55% for OBC and 45% for SC/ST will be eligible.

GDS should have obtained 50% marks in +2 or 12th standard with English as a Compulsory subject and should have put in minimum 5 years service.They should be within 30 years of age (35 years for those belonging to Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes and 33 years for other Backward Classes).

Post Office Savings Deposits to earn Higher Interest

 Post office savings bank deposits without any fixed maturity will earn interest of 4 per cent up from 3.5 per cent now.

And interest rates on other small saving instruments, such as the National Savings Certificate, will be indirectly linked to the market. The new rates could be notified from July 1, 2011 for the current fiscal year.

High interest rates offered by the banks seem to be luring people to withdraw money from the small savings. The Government was expecting Rs 24,182 crore through small savings during this fiscal, but till date far from any fresh accretion, there has been a net outflow of approximately Rs 11,000 crore. This means people withdrew more money than making fresh deposits.

There is also a proposal to discontinue the Kisan Vikas Patra scheme.

Ms. Manjula Praher is new Secretary, Posts

Ms. Manjula Prasher, an IPoS (1976) has taken over the charge of the Secretary (Posts)/ Chairperson, PSB/ DG (Posts), Department of Posts, Dak Bhawan, New Delhi-110001 wef 01.11.2011F.N.

Validity of cheques, drafts cut to 3 months

NEW DELHI: Come April 1, 2012, your cheques and bank drafts will have a life of just three months instead of the earlier six. 

 In a notification on Friday evening, the Reserve Bank of India said these instruments will have to be presented within three months from the date of issue as it has been brought to its notice by the government that some persons were taking undue advantage of the sixmonth validity of cheques/drafts/pay orders/banker's cheques by circulating them like cash for this period.

For customer awareness, banks have been asked to print the change on cheques and drafts that will be issued from April 1, 2012.

Over the last few years, a system had evolved in which a cheque issued in favour of person A would be transferred to person B, on receipt of a commission, as banks were willing to credit them into someone else's account. With the new norms, RBI hopes to reduce such misuse . RBI also asked banks to ensure that account payee cheques and drafts are only credited to accounts of the person named in the instrument.

Although the break up was unavailable , bankers said the move would affect individuals more as companies usually deposit cheques and drafts within hours of receiving them as they do not want to lose out on any interest income.

Source: Economic times