Thursday 14 November 2013

[www.keralites.net] President Obama will nominate Vivek Hallegere Murthy for Surgeon General

 
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[www.keralites.net] Employees Provident Fund ? limit on contrib ution to Pension Scheme

 

 
As the Employees  Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has capped the monthly contribution to the Employee Pension Scheme 95 (EPS95) to a maximum wage ceiling of Rs 6,500 or a contribution of Rs 541, it leaves those desiring extra pension in their retirement years to scout out other alternatives.

The EPFO has capped the contribution to EPS 95 to a wage ceiling of Rs 6,500 for fresh cases. The order from the EPFO states that "contribution to EPS-95 on higher wages would not be allowed and shall be limited to wage ceiling (Rs 6,500)". In some cases, employers were contributing more based on requests from employees.

According to EPFO rules, employees have to contribute 12 per cent towards EPF and the employer has to match the amount. Of the amount contributed by the employer, 8.33 per cent has to go towards pension, and Rs 541 works out to 8.33 per cent of Rs 6,500. Now the EPFO has mandated that the contribution to pension should not exceed Rs 541, irrespective of the salary of the employee.

This is unlikely to make a huge difference to employees, since it means that the extra contribution will now go to your regular employee provident fund (EPF) account instead of the EPS 95 scheme.

However, while this option was available many employees did not avail of this facility. Most companies in India contribute only Rs 541 as of now and not more, which is the mandatory amount to the pension component, perhaps due to lack of awareness.

As contributions towards pension will come down, employees can now build a larger provident fund corpus and also make larger withdrawals, if needed for special situations such as a marriage or construction of a house.

On the other hand, the EPS 95 scheme pays a monthly pension to its members. But now if you were planning to contribute more towards your pension account, experts suggest you could, using the funds from the provident fund corpus, immediately purchase annuity products such as annuity plans from insurance companies.

To avail of the pension, the EPS 95 rules state that you have to have worked for 10 years and have passed the age of 58. If you have put in less than 10 years of continuous service, you can withdraw the pension amount, but will not get any interest on it. So, you are perhaps better off with lower pension amount and more going toward your provident fund, which you can withdraw as a lumpsum.

Those who feel that they are better off securing a higher pension, that is monthly income rather than a lumpsum, should start investing in the National Pension Scheme. This would allow one to build a corpus and provide regular income when one retires. Since the fund managers under the NPS have the option of investing in equity and debt instruments, returns from them can work out to be quite attractive over the long term.

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[www.keralites.net] Insurance Claim settlement process will be faster with e-KYC

 

 
Suppose someone bought a Life Insurance Policy  25 years ago, he didn't provide documents for his age proof at that time as KYC was not mandatory then.  When the policy holder   went to claim his policy from the insurer after it matured after 25 years, he had to re-submit all of his physical documents to the insurance provider. Even then it took over a one to two months for his claim to be settled.

But individuals can avoid delays or buy new insurance policies easily with-KYC. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) recently said that the e-KYC (electronic know-your-customer) services operationalised by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UDAI) would be accepted as a valid KYC process for insurance. In other words, the
 AADHAAR card, which has all your details including age and biometric identification, can now serve as the sole valid document for customer identification. This will help those people who bought policies a few years ago when KYC was not mandatory. Insurance companies are in the process of updating their systems to e-KYC.  

The documentation process can be faster with e-KYC. This will be beneficial for life insurers and policyholders too." It will not only render the administrative work paper-less but also reduce the turnaround time to sell policies and settle claims.  The e-KYC will help customers of a higher age get policies quickly. For instance, there are many who do not have a birth certificate to confirm their age, or those living in rented apartments don't have an established address proof to offer.

So far, UIDAI has rolled out 460 million Aadhaar numbers. It is aiming at 600 million by early next year. For an e-KYC, one has simply to provide an Aadhaar number, after which one's fingerprints are scanned to extract data to confirm that such details match those already recorded in the system. After this, a customer is not required to provide any further documents or photographs.

Usually in life insurance, the KYC of a nominee is also equally important as it can help avoid fraudulent claims. "It will reduce cases of fraud because, through e-KYC, a policyholder can maintain utmost privacy in choosing nominees and scanning and sending documents across to the insurer," said an expert from the industry.
 
This e-KYC facility will not only greatly help investors to secure insurance cover, but will also help them apply for mutual funds and various pension plans available in the market

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[www.keralites.net] unsolicited calls and SMSes refuse to go away Despite efforts

 

Rules have been amended repeatedly but it's a lucrative business; severely penalising the ultimate beneficiaries may be needed
A recorded telephone conversation from Aravid Kejriwal, president of the Aam Admi Party, is hard to miss these days. Even if a person doesn't wish to receive such communications, he is compelled to attend to it.

These calls are not only a violation of a person's right to privacy but a reminder of the rising menace of unsolicited communications, originating through registered and unregistered telemarketers.

Dilip Pandey, who is leading Kejriwal's phone campaign, says they have hired a registered telemarketing company and people are called after their numbers are filtered from the database of the National Do Not Call Registry. However, he admits there could be Kejriwal supporters who might have been calling people on their own, to further the party's chances in the Delhi assembly elections.

There are also people who receive at least three to four calls a week from people selling credit cards and property. As of now, there are 200 million mobile phone users who have opted against unsolicited communications to save themselves the harassment of telemarketers. For the record, India had 876.72 million (urban, 525.78 million) subscribers for wireless services, including mobile phones and movable landlines, by the end of August this year. It means every fourth person prefers not to be disturbed with promotional calls.

Rule reality
For this purpose, the National Do Not Call Registry, now renamed the National Customer Preference Registry, was introduced in 2007. As it completely failed to rein in the errant telemarketers, the new and more stringent rules were introduced through the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2010, and it came into effect on September 27, 2011.

These services allow consumers to fully or partially block all unsolicited calls and text messages. For instance, if a person wishes to receive selective calls, he can opt from seven categories. These are broadly classified as banking (insurance, financial products and credit cards), real estate, education, health, consumer goods and automobiles, communication (broadcasting, entertainment and information technology) and tourism.

On paper, it seems a well-oiled system to weed out the menace of pesky calls. Whether it has actually spelt relief to people can be gauged from the fact that since the introduction of new regulations, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has amended its provisions at least 13 times. The last one was notified on August 22 this year.

And, if Trai is to be believed, both registered and unregistered telemarketers, telecom service providers, banks, insurance companies and builders are to be equally faulted for the rising menace of undesired calls. All stakeholders have huge business interests and are reluctant to stamp it out.

"Since telemarketing is a direct and cheap medium to connect with people, the unregistered telemarketers always find ways to circumvent the law. These people don't mind paying a hefty amount in penalties, as the overall cost to reaching out to people continues to remain miniscule," says Trai secretary Rajeev Agarwal.

"These days their (telemarketers) focus is more on
 SMS. People can still choose to refuse calls but they are forced to read text messages." The cost-revenue model overwhelmingly supports the idea of telemarketing. For instance, a front page print advertisement costs, on an average, Rs 18-20 lakh, whereas millions can be reached by spending a mere Rs 1 lakh the other way. The per head SMS cost is only five to 10 paise.

Marketers try to further reduce this by engaging unregistered telemarketers. By the rules, only 6,129 registered telemarketers in India are supposed to call people. Before they start making calls, they need to register with Trai, after paying a one time-fee of Rs 10,000. Also, these registered telemarketers need to bear an additional cost of five paise for each promotional SMS they send to the targeted customer.

They are governed by the provisions and are liable to be prosecuted for any wrongdoing. But they don't stick to the script. Trai has noticed that the registered telemarketers bag big contracts from mostly private banks, insurance companies and builders, and then branch out to unregistered telemarketers. This way, they get a good commission and avoid a legal penalty, which could be a criminal case, a fine or both.

Also, there is no way to quantify the number of unregistered telemarketers or to even go after them. They could be in tens of thousands. So far, Trai has collected Rs 1.47 crore in fines from registered telemarketers.

Measures
The regulator says it has adopted various measures, including the capping of bulk SMSes, which have created more nuisance than phone calls. On September 5, 2011, it put a ceiling of 100 messages a day per SIM but this failed to deter the rogue telemarketers. The latter resorted to ingenious tricks, such as routing messages through international gateways or servers located outside India. Their messages were cleverly designed, not carrying headers or telephone numbers, to hide the identity of the source and evade prosecution.

"It's like a 'catch the mouse' game. If you cover one hole, they dig another," says a Trai official, who refused to be named. For unregistered telemarketers, it's a mammoth business and has to go on. The returns are impressive and investments are miniscule, explains one who quit the business some time earlier.

Trai got wind of the new methods and directed the telecom service providers on January 20, 2012, to block communications (SMSes) having similar signatures and originating from outside India. Subsequently, Trai raised the SMS cap to 200 per day per SIM card and 6,000 a month for prepaid customers, to accommodate the genuine need of a certain category of subscribers. However, on July 13, 2012, the Delhi high court struck down the instruction.

Trai recovered its wits and decided to hit at the financial side of the business. TSPs were instructed to charge 50p for each message after the first 100 SMSes, available at a concessional rate. "Even then, there are people ready to bear this additional cost. Striking a balance between the needs of real users and unregistered telemarketers is truly a challenge. A genuine customer should not feel the pinch," says an official.

"While the regulatory interventions have tempered the menace, it has not altogether abated. UCCs (unsolicited commercial communication) from persons not registered as telemarketers continue to irritate and harass normal subscribers," Trai says in its last amendment.

Road ahead
The number of people complaining against unsolicited calls and messages is alarming. Between September 2011 and October 2013, 840,000 complaints were received. Between August 5, 2012 and August 4, 2013, about 556,000 made these complaints.

"Since unregistered telemarketers are not complying with the directions and regulations, it has become necessary to make the regulatory framework more stringent, so that not only the unregistered telemarketer but the telecom service providers and entities engaging (mostly banks, builders and insurance companies) such telemarketers to promote their business are accountable," Trai has stated.

All the three are responsible for UCCs, alleges Trai, adding the TSPs are encouraging such activities by providing attractive SMS packages and allowing bulk connections, knowing fully that these would be used for telemarketing. They are breaching the directives for additional revenue.

Market leaders such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular Services refused to participate for this story, by shifting the onus of answering to the Cellular Operators Association of India.

"It is a problem for us as well. We pay too much of amounts in fines but still cannot stop unregistered telemarketers from using our network. We don't have a mechanism to check such people and initiate criminal proceedings against them. We have been asking Trai to bring a law through Parliament," says Rajan Mathews, director-general of COAI.

Trai has collected Rs 37.45 lakh in fines from eight service providers. It has also got 960,000 phones disconnected. It says the private banks, which mostly employ unregistered telemarketers, are falling in line. The biggest concern continues to be builders, who continue to exploit the numbers databank, easily available in the open market.

"We don't engage telemarketers. Our people only contact those who have bought properties, even if it was 15 years ago. The attempt is worth it, as the entire telemarketing cost is recovered if we manage to sell properties to two out of 100 people," says Pradip Jain, chairman of Parsvnath Builders. However, he refused to speak on behalf of fellow builders. Source-Business Standard

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[www.keralites.net] 5 Techniques to Recharge Your Employees

 




I have realized that I can relate any employee with a re-chargeable battery. To elaborate it more, lets consider the analogy of smart phones. In most of the smart phones the battery consumption is displayed on the top right corner of mobile screen. When the consumption percentage falls below 25%, the color of battery icon turns orange and when it is less than 10% the color goes alarmingly red. So it is responsibility of the owner to ensure timely charging to keep it functional. Just like that, it is responsibility of each manager to closely observe the discharge level of each member of his/her team and take appropriate measures to ensure high efficiency of the employee consequently getting maximum throughput. The good news is that when employees are charged more and more, they produce the results in the same high proportion!

 
So below are some techniques which can be considered to boost the charge level:

 
1-    Trainings: Needless to emphasize the importance of training, this is one of the critically important aspect of professional growth and ultimately for the business enhancement. It's a genuine Win-Win approach. I highly recommend studying the concept of "Sharpen The Saw" from Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly effective people ®. The trainings can either be online, or in-house or at international level. Further, podcasts can also be considered. 

2-   Professional Membership: Encourage employee to join professional groups. Even if the company has to pay some amount for the membership, it should be done. Employee will get satisfaction for being the member and will learn new ideas and trends in the industry which will eventually help business growth.


3-   Get together: If possible, Employee's families to be invited as well. This will give extra boost to employee's satisfaction index. Outdoor activities including Lunch, games and fun activities can be considered.


4-   Financial benefits: This is the most attractive part from employee's perspective. This can either be on annual or project basis. Specific targets can be set in terms of sale (or any applicable Key Performance Indicator). High KPI should result in high bonus. This will ensure employee go extra mile to achieve high and high. Also Employee of the month is another technique which should be used. A certificate along with optimal amount of cash will feed extra energy.


5-   Knowledge based sessions: Technical and motivational lectures/events should be arranged on weekly or monthly basis. You may find a gem within your team who loves to speak on a specific subject. Find such people and give them the opportunity to share their knowledge and skills with other colleagues.

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