Oil PSU officers fear slippage in effective pay

Officers in public sector oil cos fear slippage in effective pay


………….Govt proposes capping allowances at 50% of basic pay

This festival season is turning out to be anything but festive for nearly 70,000 officers of national oil companies. A recent order from the Government, if implemented, may squeeze their effective compensation by 10-20 per cent. The officers in public sector units (PSUs) are classified into nine grades going up to Executive Director with compensations ranging from around Rs 45,000 to a little over Rs 2 lakh a month.

In 2009, the Government had capped perquisites and allowances for PSU employees at 50 per cent of basic pay. Oil companies sidestepped the cap by offering a bouquet of perks (such as residential telephone and broadband connections, reimbursement for mobile handset, car maintenance, washing charge of uniform, night-shift allowance, professional body memberships, expenses for higher education and entertainment and soft loans at bank rates, among others) as “work-related expenditure” or reimbursements. However, in a communication issued in August 2011, the Petroleum Ministry, quoting an order from the Department of Public Enterprises, directed that all such reimbursements would fall under the 50 per cent of basic pay cap.

Severe impact

Estimates made by the Association of Scientific and Technical Officers (ASTO) of ONGC and Indian Oil Officers' Association (IOOA) suggest that the withdrawal of car maintenance reimbursement alone will lead to a 10 per cent fall in compensation for the officers. According to ASTO, nearly 24,000 ONGC officers may face an effective pay erosion of Rs 18,000-28,000 a month. The officers have already represented to the Prime Minister and the Petroleum Minister in this regard.

Corporate savings

The withdrawal of car maintenance expenses alone will save Rs 840 crore a year for the oil companies. Going by ASTO estimates, ONGC alone should save in excess of Rs 500 crore a year.

Joint effort

But the top managements of the oil companies are unhappy. Faced with tremendous resentment, they are now planning to submit a joint representation to the Petroleum Ministry this week, to allow them to offer such facilities and reimbursements. “Since our individual representations were overlooked in the past, we are now planning a joint move,” a senior official told Business Line.

Source
(Kolkata, Oct. 9:::::: Pratim Ranjan Bose , This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated October 10, 2011)