Awareness programmee on PRANAM Act held at Cachar

HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, Dec 7: An awareness meeting was held with the drawing and disbursing officers of various departments of Cachar district to raise awareness about the Assam Employees PRANAM Act 2017 here on Wednesday.
The awareness meeting was organised by the Cachar district administration at Gandhi Bhavan of Silchar.
Speaking on the occasion, VB Pyarelal, the chief commissioner of PRANAM Commission formed by the state government to implement the PRANAM Act said, “Under this Act, if the parents or dependent siblings of a government employee are financially neglected, then under this Act, 10 percent of the monthly salary of the concerned employee or in any case compensation up to 15 percent of the amount can be claimed. Such an application should be submitted by the dependent parents and dependent siblings to the drawing and disbursing officer or DDO. The DDO will be bound to settle the claim within 90 days. If the DDO fails to dispose of the case within the stipulated time frame then the divisional commissioner of Cachar being the first appellate authority can give priority to the appeal.”
“However, if the divisional commissioner fails to dispose of the case within 60 days or any party concerned is aggrieved by the order, an appeal can be made to the PRANAM Aayog. After that, PRANAM Aayog will decide the appeal within 90 days and the decision of the Aayog will be final and binding,” said the chief commissioner in the meeting.
Meanwhile, the Act also provides that if a government servant dies before retirement, his dependent parent and specially abled siblings can also claim similar compensation from the pension earned by his husband, wife or legal heirs.
Earlier, additional deputy commissioner Dipak Jidung urged all DDOs to implement this law properly. In the meeting leaflets containing information about this law were distributed among all. It is to be noted that under the PRANAM Act 2017, which has been implemented for the first time in Assam in the whole country, all employees of the state government, government agencies and all employees working under the state government agencies will come under this law.
The Act was also discussed in detail through power point presentation.
Additional superintendent of police, Subrata Sen, assistant commissioner H Mili, election officer, Kishan Chorei, executive magistrate and in-charge district mission coordinator Himashri Deka were also present on the occasion.