Oil PSU officials’ strike from Dec 2

NEW DELHI: India’s 14 state-run oil sector companies’ 55,000 officers plan to go on an indefinite strike beginning December 2 this year, as they are dissatisfied with the quantum of pay revision approved for them by the government after a gap of 10 years.

Loss in crude production due to strike will result in upstream (exploration & production) oil companies losing Rs 225 crore per day, and downstream (refining & marketing) companies losing Rs 900 crore per day, Oil Sector Officers’ Association’s President Amit Kumar told reporters.

The largest explorer and producer Oil and Natural Gas Corp will alone lose Rs 183 crore a day and the largest refiner and marketer Indian Oil Corp will alone lose about Rs 600 crore per day, Kumar said.

The government’s claim of 300% hike in the pay scales of the public sector undertakings’ employees is not true, Kumar told reporters.

“On the contrary, the actual rise is a meagre 30% after a time gap of 10 years,” Kumar said, adding, “In oil sector, around 60% officers are stagnated for a period as long as eight years and few hundred are stagnated since last pay revision… And whatever has been approved, majority of the officers will get stagnated within one year.”

The state-run companies cap the quantum of remuneration for employees at each level. Thus, if an employee has reached the highest payable scale at his/her level, he/she would not get any increment until being promoted. The government claimed to have hugely increased the basic pay of public sector companies’ employees, but it actually merged the 68.8% dearness allowances with the basic pay first and then increased the entire amount by 30%, an oil marketing company’s executive said.

Moreover, the government has reduced rate of increment in pay from 4% per annum (and 6% on promotion) to 3% per year each, the executive said. The association says it wants a special dispensation for the oil sector companies to decide on raising the remuneration for its employees, which was discontinued by the government.

Many of the PSU employees are leaving their organisations and are joining private sector firms at salaries as high as between five and ten times more, Kumar said.

 a_shaleen@dnaindia.net