GUWAHATI: It has been noticed that the existing compassionate appointment policy did not fully serve these objectives and often the legal heir fails to get an appointment immediately due to practical difficulties such as lack of educational qualifications by the legal heir and non-availability of vacancies within the stipulated five per cent of total vacancies etc,
In the above background, it was announced in the budget speech of 2017-18 by the Finance Minister, Assam at para 61 to 63 that a scheme will be formulated to overcome the hardship and harassment to the family members of the deceased employees by offering them the last pay drawn salary of the employee at the time of death.
Accordingly, it is proposed to notify a new Scheme called, “Scheme for Compassionate Family Pension in lieu of Compassionate Appointment” and in short, it may be called, Compassionate Family Pension Scheme or CFP Scheme.
Draft guidelines formulated have the following features:
Where the employee dies before superannuation, the family pension equal to 100% of the last pay drawn by the deceased employee be paid for a period up to the date of ‘deemed superannuation’ of the deceased employee i.e., the date on which the employee would have superannuated had he been alive. This would compensate the loss of family income to a large extent and fulfil the requirement of compassionate conditions arising out of the death of the serving employee.
The last pay drawn for this purpose is the last basic pay (pay in the pay band plus grade pay). Over and above, the Compassionate Family Pensioner will get the applicable Dearness Relief and other Relief amounts as admissible in the normal family pension.
This CFP fixed at 100% of the last pay drawn will be revised periodically as and when normal pension/family pension are revised.
On attaining the date of deemed Superannuation; the CFP will be converted into normal Family Pension. This normal family pension shall be fixed at 50% of CFP from the date of deemed superannuation till 67 years of age of the deceased employee. During this period of 7 years, the normal family pension will be revised periodically as and when normal pension is revised.
Further, on completion of above period of 7 years, the normal family pension will be reduced from 50% to 30% till the applicable eligibility as per the Assam Services (Pension) Rules, 1969 (as amended from time to time).
If the parents or other eligible family members are not looked after by the Compassionate Family Pensioner, on receipt of such complaint from them, the competent authority will issue orders apportioning the Compassionate Family Pension appropriately among the other eligible family members.
But, in case of CFP, the Compassionate Family Pensioner ceases to get the CFP at 100% of the last pay drawn if the Compassionate Family Pensioner happens to be ineligible for normal family pension as per Assam Services (Pension) Rules, 1969 (as amended from time to time).
The applicable definition of family of the employee dies-in-harness will be the definition of family that is given in the Assam Services (Pension) Rules, 1969 (as amended from time to time).
CFP scheme is not applicable for Voluntary retirement/resignation or any other cases and “an employee dies-in-harness” is the sole criteria. The cause for the death of the employee-in-harness can be anything, either natural or unnatural.
This will be applicable to all employees of State Government, provincialized employees and all others as eligible under Assam Services (Pension) Rules, 1969 (as amended from time to time) , all State Government employees under NPS category and All India Services officers borne on Assam cadre.
The scheme is applicable to those employees who died/die in harness on or after 01.04.2017. However, the relevant OMs related to the Compassionate appointments will be applicable to those who died on or before 31.03.2017.
The draft guidelines of the proposed CFP Scheme is put up on the website of the Finance department seeking comments/feedback from the citizens and employees of the State within a week (by 27.08.2017) so that the final scheme can be notified at the earliest.
It can be accessed at finance.assam.gov.in and the feedback may be sent on [email protected]