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Bhilai, Mar 18: A delegation of Steel Executive Federation of India (SEFI) recently paid visit to the Union Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh and Union Minister of State for Steel Vishnu Deo Sai seeking their intervention for immediate resolution of pending issues pertaining to executives of SAIL. SEFI President Bakshi KP Prasad; General Secretary Narendra Kumar Banchor (BSP-OA President); Vimal (President, OA-RSP) and Shahid Ahmad (GS, OA-BSP) discussed the various issues in detail with the ministers and appraised them about the mounting resentment among the executives.
The issues discussed during the meeting included Implementation of pension scheme; Relaxation of Affordability clause in pay revision; Disinvestment of SAIL Units; Pay conflict of 2008 & 2010 batch Junior Officers; Payment of arrears of perks for 11 months; and Re-designation of executives.
SEFI office bearers stated that the pension scheme was one of the major components of 30% Superannuation Benefit for executives, as stipulated in the relevant office order for revision of pay with effect from January 2007. But the pension scheme is yet to be implemented in SAIL. This inordinate delay is resulting in huge financial loss to the superannuating executives and is demoralizing the executive collective.
Demanding relaxation of Affordability clause of 3rd PRC, the SEFI office bearers stated that the Affordability clause, mentioned in guidelines issued by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) on Pay Revision wef January 2017, is causing a lot of disappointment. Affordability clause is severely affecting the revision of pay of the executives of SAIL for reasons not attributable to them but purely to external factors like adverse global market scenario, etc. It will be a travesty of justice if the executives of SAIL are denied the full benefits of 3rd PRC solely on the basis of the performance of one single year (i.e. 2015-16) while ignoring the performance of the preceding 9 years when it earned a net cumulative profit of over Rs 54 000 Crores. They further said that in spite of the adverse and challenging scenario, SAIL has made a turnaround in third quarter of FY18 and therefore it is imperative that to maintain the positive growth trajectory, the motivation level of executives needs to he maintained at its peak.
They expressed concern over the disinvestment of three units of SAIL and expressed strong resentment over the latest decision of the NITI Aayog and Govt of India on disinvestment of 3 Units of SAIL – SSP Salem; VISL Bhadrawati and ASP, Durgapur. They added that these 3 Units of SAIL produce high NSR yielding special grade steel finding wide application in defence, aeronautical, space and naval sector and are the priced ornaments of SAIL. They suggested that the disinvestment can be prevented by entering into strategic partner-ship (joint venture / Merger) with other public sector companies.
Further discussing the pay anomaly of junior officers, they informed that the wage revision of non-executives wef January 01, 2012 has resulted in a conflict of pay with the junior executives of 2008 & 2010 batch resulting in a peculiar situation where the pay of non-executives is far greater than the cross section of their counterparts who have been elevated to execute cadre in 2008 & 2010 respectively. Demanding payment of arrears of perks; they said that the executives are aggrieved due to non-payment of perquisites for the period 26-11-2008 to 05-10-2009 due to reasons purely attributable to the delay in decision making by the concerned authorities. As the matter is pending before judiciary, SEFI demanded from the Steel Minister to intervene for early resolution of this issue.
They further informed that in all other Maharatna PSUs like Indian Oil Corporation, ONGC, NTPC, GAIL BHEL, BPCL etc the nomenclature of executives upto E8 grade has been revised. They requested for issuance of similar circular in SAIL as this initiative will have a tremendous positive impact on the morale of the executives in view of the societal status.
