Assam to bring law to ensure government staff take care of parents, disabled sisters

GUWAHATI: The Assam government is set to introduce a Bill that will seek to ensure that government employees take care of their parents or disabled sisters.

Under the proposed law, solely dependent parents or a physically challenged sister can get 10-15% of the salary of a government employee, state finance and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

The Bill will be tabled in the assembly next month. If there is a dispute, the head of the department where the employee is working will act as a quasi-judicial body to resolve it, he said.

The state government has also proposed to initiate compassionate family pension in lieu of compassionate appointments.

“It has been noticed that the existing compassionate appointment policy did not fully serve objectives,” he said, adding: Often the legal heirs fail 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 5% of total vacancies.”

Under the new scheme, he said, “the family members of the deceased employees will be offered the last drawn salary of the employee at the time of death.”

This payment to the family will be revised from time to time, he said.

“We have put this scheme for feedback and depending upon the feedback we will notify the accordingly after August 27,” the minister added.