Ex-CPMF to be at par in Canteen Facilities

The long pending demand for Canteen facilities for about 7.5 lakh Ex-Central Para Military Force men has been approved by Government of India. As per central news released by Press Information Bureau, GOI, A Central Police Forces Canteen System (CPFCS) is being established to provide a wide range of goods to serving as well as retired personnel of the forces and their families through their unit outlets. The system is designed to take advantage of the competition in the market with a clientele of seven and a half lakh CPMF personnel and their families. The battalions would take their supplies directly from the authorized dealers/stockists of the manufacturers thereby saving on the profits of intermediaries. The system is structured to have a low operational cost and to eliminate generation of dead stocks. The CPFCS would be administered by a Common Central Administrative Committee (CAC) and Central Purchase Committee(CPC) manned by Force officers. Regional Depots will also be made functional in remote areas in due course where possibilities of distributors do not exist. The initial working capital will be provided from the welfare fund to be recouped over a period of time. The CPFCS system will be functional within a few weeks.

The CPMF personnel have been demanding Canteen facilities similar to the CSD system of the Ministry of Defence for a very long time. The demand becomes more relevant in the present scenario of intense involvement of CPMF personnel for anti-terrorist and counter-insurgency operations away from their homes and families and civic amenities for prolonged spells. Not only do they have to bear the burden of maintaining two establishments, but also survive intense hardship on account of deployment under stress-full conditions where basic requirements also may not be easy to get. With firm commitment to provide better working conditions to all the para-military personnel, the Home Minister had directed that a scheme be introduced for providing the requirement of CPF personnel through a common canteen system. Source: Press Information Bureau, GOI.

Cars through CSD to the Serving and Ex-servicemen Stopped

Purchasing car through CSD canteen with discount (minus taxes) was made available to all ranks recently (01st of Jan 2009). This facilitity was not continued to make available for long, infact not even for 2.5 year. Well, I was lucky to grab this opportunity in 2009...

On April 15, 2011 the quartermaster general branch (QMG) of the army had issued a circular by which the sale of cars through CSD to the serving and retired soldiers was stopped. At the time of imposing a blanket ban on sale, all the command headquarters were informed that the ban would be reviwed after 30th of June, 2011.

Now, it has been nearly six moths and there is no conclusions made in this regard. Due this delay in decision, nearly 40,000 ex-servicemen are affected. Please Click Here to read further.

Centre rejects site for CSD in Una

SHIMLA: Poor selection of site by the state government is going to deprive lakhs of soldiers, ex-servicemen and their families of a canteen stores depot (CSD) in the state, as the Union defence ministry has rejected 188 kanals of land in Una after finding it prone to floods. The ministry has made it clear that even if another site is selected, the proposal will be considered depending upon availability of budget and manpower.

There is no depot in the state and government has been pursuing the issue vigorously with the Centre over the past one year. In May, chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal had even written a letter to Union defence minister A K Antony on the issue. The state has 1,20,200 serving soldiers, 1,02,739 ex-servicemen, 1,057 war widows, 27,367 other widows and 7,50,804 other dependents of ex-servicemen and serving soldiers.

At present CSD supplies come from depots located in Punjab and Haryana. "Representatives of ex-servicemen and military commanders had been repeatedly raising the issue of setting up a depot in the state and it was proposed that it be located in Una since the area was well connected with broad gauge railway line," sources said.

Identification of 188 kanals at Baned, in Una district, had cleared the path for opening a CSD bulk supply store, a first in this region. The proposed bulk supply store was estimated to cost around Rs 40 crore and was likely to cater to 50 CSD canteens in the region.

But the hope was dashed on Monday, when the Union defence minister informed Parliament that land offered by the state government was not found to be suitable, since it also included rivulets and nullahs which are prone to flooding during the rainy season. The minister gave the information while replying to a query of Virender Kashyap, MP from Himachal, in Lok Sabha.

"It is not possible at this stage to anticipate the time likely to be taken for setting up the depot at Una in view of the fact that the Himachal Pradesh government is yet to identify another piece of suitable land. Once a suitable alternate land is offered by the state government the proposal will be considered depending upon availability of budget and manpower," he informed. Source: TOI News.