RINL’s Forgotten People: A Lifetime Served, A Lifetime Waiting

OPINION PIECE BY Vasa Srinivasa Murthy, former DGM (HR), Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL)

Retirement is supposed to be the reward for a lifetime of service. After decades of giving an organisation one’s productive years, an employee should be able to leave with dignity, settled dues and the confidence that the institution will stand by its commitments.

But if the account narrated by retired RINL officer Vasa Srinivasa Murthy, former DGM (HR), Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, is anything to go by, retirement for some former employees has become the beginning of another struggle—one involving representations, procedural hurdles, prolonged waiting and, eventually, litigation.

And that raises an uncomfortable question: Why should a retired employee have to fight in court to receive what he or she believes was already earned during service?

When the institution becomes the obstacle

The issues cited by Murthy are not confined to one isolated dispute.

He points to the medical insurance controversy involving PRMS, VRS payments, Production Linked Incentive dues and the higher-pension issue of employees who retired between 2007 and 2011. According to his account, several of these matters have remained unresolved for years and, in some instances, have resulted in litigation.

The most striking example is the alleged PLI dues exceeding ₹10 crore, which, according to Murthy, have remained unresolved for nearly twelve years. He says the issue arose after PLI amounts earlier paid to executives were subsequently recovered, followed by a DPE clarification, while some affected executives remained unpaid. He further states that RINL admitted liability in response to legal notices, yet the matter remains unsettled.

Twelve years is not merely a delay.

For a retiree, twelve years can be an entire chapter of the remaining life.

The cost of delay is different for a retiree

For a serving employee, an administrative dispute can remain just that—an administrative dispute.

For a 70-year-old pensioner, it is something else entirely.

Every adjournment matters. Every unanswered representation matters. Every year spent waiting has a human cost.

Murthy points out that some retirees involved in the litigation have already passed away. A favourable judgment after their death may provide relief to their families, but it cannot restore the years during which the person who earned the money was waiting for it.

That is where the debate needs to move beyond balance sheets and accounting entries.

A retiree’s legitimate dues cannot be viewed merely as another financial liability on a company’s books.

Financial distress cannot become a permanent answer

RINL’s financial difficulties are well known, and the organisation’s management cannot be expected to ignore genuine financial constraints.

But there is an important distinction between explaining an inability to pay immediately and questioning whether an entitlement exists at all.

Murthy raises this question in the context of government support reportedly extended to RINL and the company’s continuing revenue generation. He also points to the reduction in the company’s pay bill following retirements, resignations and VRS. His larger argument is that the issue is not simply whether money exists, but whether retired employees are being treated as a priority deserving transparency and accountability.

That is a legitimate question for any large public-sector institution.

The right to be heard

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the account is not financial at all.

It is being heard.

Murthy argues that retirees seeking meetings with decision-makers sometimes struggle even to secure an opportunity to explain their grievances. He describes this as particularly painful because these are not outsiders—they are former employees and officers who spent decades working for the organisation.

There is an important principle here: hearing someone does not mean agreeing with them.

An organisation can reject a claim. It can defend itself before a court. It can explain why a payment cannot be made. But refusing to engage—or allowing a retiree to feel that there is no institutional door left open—creates a much deeper problem of trust.

From individual disputes to an institutional question

Any one of these cases can perhaps be explained away as a policy issue, a financial issue, a procedural issue or a matter pending before the courts.

But when several such disputes accumulate, the institution must ask whether there is a systemic problem.

Murthy describes a recurring sequence: delay, procedural objections, questions over representation, adjournments, financial explanations and prolonged litigation.

Whether every individual claim is ultimately found valid is a matter for the competent authorities and courts.

But there is another question that does not require a judicial verdict:

Could these grievances have been handled more quickly, transparently and humanely before they reached the courtroom?

Retirees are not disposable

The most provocative phrase in Murthy’s article is his assertion that retirees should not be treated like “barren cows” once their productive years are over. His point is not to compare human beings with animals, but to challenge an institutional mindset in which a person’s value is measured only by what he or she produces today.

That argument deserves serious consideration.

An organisation is not built merely by machines, buildings and capital.

It is built by people.

The employees who worked at Visakhapatnam Steel Plant contributed their labour, expertise, institutional memory and years of their lives. Retirement ends the employment relationship. It should not end institutional responsibility, dignity or legitimate rights.

This is not about charity

The retirees are not asking for charity.

At least, that is not how the issue should be framed.

If a claim is wrong, say so clearly.

If a payment is legally untenable, explain why.

If the organisation genuinely lacks the resources to make a payment immediately, place the facts transparently before the concerned people.

If a matter is before a court, defend the organisation’s position.

But none of these things requires an institution to stop listening.

As Murthy puts it, retirees are seeking clarity, responsiveness and fairness—not favours.

The real test of an institution

RINL’s legacy cannot be measured only in tonnes of steel, turnover, production figures or financial performance.

There is another, less visible balance sheet.

How did the institution treat the people who built it?

That is a question every large PSU should periodically ask itself.

Employees are expected to demonstrate loyalty when they are in service. They are expected to accept transfers, targets, pressures and organisational decisions. In return, they expect the institution to honour its commitments.

That relationship should not abruptly disappear on the day the employee retires.

RINL still has an opportunity to demonstrate that institutional compassion and financial prudence can coexist: review long-pending retiree claims, provide required records to statutory authorities, establish transparent grievance mechanisms and create a meaningful channel for direct engagement with former employees.

Doing so would not weaken the institution.

It would strengthen it.

Because ultimately, retirement ends employment—not entitlement.

It ends a person’s official designation, not his dignity.

And it certainly should not mean that someone who spent the best years of his life building an institution must spend the remaining years fighting that institution for what he believes he has already earned.

The final question, therefore, is not merely about money.

It is about legacy:

Will RINL be remembered as an institution that stood by its people even after they retired—or as one that made them fight for what they believed was already theirs?

Opinion expressed above is that of Vasa Srinivasa Murthy, former DGM (HR), Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL)

Editor’s Note

After giving more than half of their lives in the service of RINL, it is more a matter of shame than pity that these officers and workers are being forced to run from pillar to post during the second half of their lives for their actual and legitimate dues.

What is even more disturbing is the apparent indifference of those who should be listening. Neither the top management of RINL nor the babus sitting in the corridors of the Steel Ministry appear to have a minute to spare to understand the hardships of those who spent their productive years building the organisation.

These are not people asking for charity. They are asking for dignity, fairness and what they believe they have already earned.

An institution that remembers its employees only while they are productive, but forgets them the moment they retire, needs to seriously examine not just its policies—but its conscience.