HC Deb 13 March 1913 vol 50 cc442-3W
Sir J. D. REES

asked the Under-Secretary for India whether the Secretary of State for India will state if the case of postal superintendents is receiving the attention of the Government of India; whether a proposal to improve their status and pay has been submitted by the head of the department to the Government of India, and, if so, with what result; whether the Secretary of State is aware that the position of postal superintendents who are gazetted officers compares very unfavourably in the matter of pay with that of officers holding similar rank in the police, surveys, and telegraphs departments; whether the Secretary of State is aware that no benefit is likely to result to postal superintendents under the amalgamation scheme of post and telegraphs, although their work and responsibility in the control of combined post and telegraph offices, which earn a revenue of 42 lakhs a year for the telegraph department, has greatly increased; whether the superintendents and assistant superintendents of telegraphs are to receive more advantages than the superintendents of the post office under the amalgamation scheme; and what are the grounds for declining to place postal superintendents on the same time scale of pay, namely, Rs. 250 rising to Rs. 800 in twenty-two years by annual increments, as the provincial branch of the telegraph department?

Mr. HAROLD BAKER

The position of the postal superintendents has not been brought to the notice of the Secretary of State by the Government of India, and he is not aware whether it is at present under their consideration. As regards the effect of the amalgamation of the postal and telegraph departments on the position and salaries of these officers, the scheme is at present in an experimental stage, and confined to a portion of India, and the Secretary of State has no information as to whether it will involve such additions to the duties and responsibilities of postal superintendents as to justify a revision of the scale of salaries hitherto prevailing in the postal department for this class of officers.