Nagpur: The Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra (FDCM), a state-owned company engaged in commercial extraction of timber, is going out of the way to appoint retired divisional managers (DMs), and granting them all financial and administrative powers they enjoyed during service.FDCM has issued an advertisement on its official website inviting applications from retired DMs and divisional forest officers (DFOs), whose age should not exceed 61 years. “This has allegedly been done to favour a section of DMs who retired recently. The age limit of 61 is against the GR issued on December 17, 2016, which fixes the upper age limit as 65 years,” said a retired FDCM employee and RTI applicant.The RTI applicant was denied information under the RTI Act about the 186th FDCM board meeting on June 28, 2018, where this recruitment was approved. “Denial of RTI information itself speaks volumes about some vested interests,” he alleged.He said that since the GR of December 2016 is applicable to FDCM, candidates cannot be allowed any other emoluments other than those mentioned in this GR, such as DA, HRA, CCA, incentive allowances, telephone allowances, medical bill reimbursement, transport allowance etc. However, FDCM has decided to grant retired DMs all the above perks as well financial and administrative powers.The GR of December 2016 clearly mentions that experience of such retired persons should not be less than three years, but the advertisement seeks only one year experience, allegedly to accommodate a section of DMs who retired last year.FDCM managing director N Rambabu said the 2016 GR was modified on February 21, 2018, for state-owned corporations and autonomous bodies which do not get grants for disbursement of salaries of staff, and FDCM is one of them.However, the RTI activist claims the modified GR of 2018 has been misinterpreted by FDCM officials. “The amendment speaks only about grant of salary to retired personnel, and not about other financial and administrative powers and perks, which a regular employee gets while in service,” he said.The former official says FDCM cannot be categorized in the group of corporations and autonomous bodies which do not get grants for disbursement of salaries.“Even if FDCM does not get grants, it is completely dependent on rich reserve forest areas involving tigers and wildlife. Trees in these areas are felled every year for generation of funds for disbursement of salaries and allowances,” he said.Interestingly, there is no government sanction to the proposal. Rambabu only said, “The proposal has board of directors (BoD) sanction.”Earlier, Rambabu had told TOI that a bank guarantee of Rs50 lakh would be sought from the new appointees, but now it has been reduced to Rs25 lakh.Under Maharashtra Civil Services Rules (MCSR) Rules, which are also applicable to FDCM, retired officials appointed on contract basis don’t have administrative and financial powers. The 2016 GR also states that retired official of Group A and B category can be appointed on contract basis for specific job or work for specified period, and not against any sanctioned post, which is being done.“It will be very difficult to fix responsibility on them in case of misappropriation as departmental enquiry rules are not applicable on them, which have not been modified. The advertisement is silent on this. Secondly, number of posts to be filled is not mentioned in the advertisement, which may lead to serious irregularities,” said some office bearers of Maharashtra State FDCM Employees Sanghatana.

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