VRS Proposal to Employees Of PSUs To Be Privatized Nothing But Compulsory Retirement Scheme

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In today’s (03/09/2021) News Dailies two important news item has been published with regard to Public Sector. One News item says that the Union Government will soon announce a special voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for the Employees of Public Sector Banks and Air India. This decision is based on the recommendations of the Niti Aayog.

What is the background for this ?

It is only to forcefully bring down the strength of Public Sector banks so that the Banks can be easily privatized. The Private Sectors who ever wanted to purchase the nationalized banks will impose conditions that the employees strength should be carved down to half and that is why the Government is rushing to impose the VRS scheme. It is actually a compulsory retirement scheme.

The entire Trade Union movement of this country will oppose this evil design of the present Government. Another news item which has been published today is that the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin has announced in the Assembly that his Government will vehemently oppose the Union Government’s National Monetization Pipeline policy and stated that he would write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him not to sell or lease out public sector organizations. Since public sector units belongs to the people the proposed move to handover them to Private Companies should be opposed. The Public Sector institution had been developed based on the Tax payers money.

It has helped for Industrialization and also to develop micro and small scale industries, besides helping the Nation’s economic developments and creating employment opportunities. Moreover, it is only in Government Sector and Private Sector the constitutional right of reservation in jobs for socially and economically downtrodden and backward communities. All these benefits will be taken away once the Public sector are converted to private sector.

The present Union Government is bent upon to finish all Government Organisations. Attack has already been started against Indian Railways, Railway Production Units, Ordnance Factories under Ministry of Defence and other Departments. Their agenda is to first convert these organizations in to Corporation/public Sector and there after it can be easily privatized.

Privatization means no employment generation, no permanent job, every job will be for fixed term or through contract, no social security like provident fund and pension, no reservation in jobs. Therefore the attack is not on Government sector and private sector alone, it is an attack on the unemployed youth of this country, it is an attack against social security and it is an attack against social justice. Therefore, each and every citizen of this country should be there in the forefront to fight against these evil designs of the Government.

Government claims after announcing the National Monetization pipeline, when opposition started throughout the country that monetization is not privatization. Monetization implies that the ownership continues to be with the Government, but only the profit will go to the kitty of the Private Corporates. Ultimately what will happen they will completely exploit the public assets and after extracting all the benefits from the same will quietly return it back when there is nothing left in that asset.

When all these anti-people activities are going on in the country, another news has come that over 1.5 Million people have lost their jobs in August 2021. The National unemployment rose from 6.5% in July to 8.32% in last month. The job market in India is struggling. In this situation the closing down of Government Sector and privatizing the Public Sector is going to have serious impact on the employment generation and the economic growth of our country.

Views expressed here are those of C.Srikumar, General Secretary of AIDEF and also the National Executive Committee member of AITUC