Public sector firms must wait till Dec

The 1.6 million employees of public sector companies will have to wait till December for raised wages even as the Cabinet today cleared higher salaries for government employees.

“The approval of the public sector pay revision report is going to be delayed. The Cabinet is likely to take it up only by December,” confirmed a government official.

He said the delay is on account of objections raised by public sector employees on recommendations of their pay commission report, saying the 25 to 40 per cent increase was far below requirement.

The second public sector pay revision committee, headed by former Supreme Court Justice MJ Rao, submitted its report to the ministry of heavy industries on May 30 this year.

“The recommended increase in salary is meagre. We have taken up the issue with the petroleum minister. If the government does not meet our demands then we will agitate nationwide,” said Amit Kumar, president, Association of Scientific and Technical Officers of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). The association had threatened to strike work last August on the issue.

Salaries of public sector employees were last revised in 1997, when central government salaries were revised, and were scheduled for the next revision on January 1, 2007.

“We would want at least a doubling of our present salary if the public sector companies are to compete with the private sector,” said an official with a government-owned power company.

The average gross monthly salary an ONGC executive earns today is between Rs 40,000 and Rs 50,000. Private sector employees earn five to six times that.

Power equipment maker Bhel’s Chairman and Managing Director K Ravi Kumar draws an annual salary of around Rs 13 lakh. In contrast, private sector engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro’s A M Naik earns around Rs 5.85 crore a year, annual reports of the companies show.

A former chairman of an oil company said a major issue is to revise the dearness allowances (DA). Public sector employees currently get industrial DA, which is lower than the central DA that bureaucrats get.

Another anomaly public sector companies want corrected is being omitted from pension. Public sector employees currently get contributory provident fund money as a post-retirement benefit.

Public sector employees are, however, even more worried about the pay revision being delayed to December. “Everyone in the offices of public sector companies is only discussing wages. This delay is very worrisome in these days of high costs,” said a mid-level official with Indian Oil Corporation, which has around 35,000 employees.