ONGC Announces Fresh Round Of VRS

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Mumbai, Feb 29: : Exploration major Oil and Natural Gas Corpor-ation (ONGC) is struggling to downsize its staff number. The company has announced a fresh round of voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for its employees, starting from March 1, 2004, after the company failed to convince a sizeable number of its employees to quit for the last two years.

The company wants to reduce its workforce by at least 3,500 employees. It has a strength of 36,000 employees. This time, however, the VRS would be open for two months instead of the usual one month, said ONGC chairman and managing director Subir Raha. He added: “ONGC is a public sector unit and hence it has to follow the rules laid down by the government for reducing its workforce. He admitted that though the previous VRS offered by the company have not been very successful, the company does not have any other option to reduce the staff strength.”

The average age of an employee in the organisation is about 45 years which is not very impressive, said another senior official of the company. He added that since ONGC was bound by government rules, the company cannot come up with new proposals to trim its workforce.

The official added that the company wants younger employees. But due to promotion guidelines laid down by the government, younger people could not be promoted. However, ONGC was giving greater responsibilities to the younger employees. The official added that ONGC would give incentives to the performing employees.

The official added that ONGC was considering a new proposal, whereby employees can go on a long leave in search of alternate employment. However, if the employee fails to get a job, he could join back. But this proposal will have to be approved by the government, said the ONGC official.

In the first VRS offered by ONGC in 2001, only about 1,000 employees opted for the separation scheme. The company then extended the scheme by another month, till the end of December. Then ONGC extended the time period for opting for the VRS for one entire year, following which another VRS was offered which ended on September 30.

However, none of the VRS offered by ONGC so far have met success. In fact, none of the public sector oil companies have met with much success.