Functioning of Public Sector Units (PSUs) in the State has been far from satisfactory. This is the case with most of the PSUs though a few of these do not fall in this category. There are many reasons for their failure. But one major reason has been employment of unskilled labour to do skilled jobs and the second is over staffing of the units. Those at the helm of affairs have not had the vision of where they are leading the PSU to by overstaffing them. Maybe this was owing to nepotism that has crept into our society as one of the negative traits of character. Therefore the government was faced with the prospect of closing down these units because they were running in losses and government could not afford to let that situation continue.
There are many legal and other difficulties in ousting the surplus man power from a PSU. The constitution and the law of the land provide many safeguards to the employees in regard to their means of livelihood. Keeping this in mind, the government devised a scheme called Golden Hand shake/Voluntary Retirement Scheme. By dint of this new scheme an employee could opt for voluntary retirement before the actual date of retirement and he would get benefits in no way less than the pension and pension benefits which he would get otherwise. It is not an enforced retirement and is left entirely to the discretion of the employees. This was a good scheme because it served the stakeholders best. The overstaffed unites would shed the extra man power and the employees taking GHS/VRS would be benefited adequately so that they could re-start their life by taking up different profession or doing private business.
The objective behind recommending GHS/VRS was to achieve optimum manpower utilization for sustained profitability, to downsize surplus and unproductive labour force and improve overall skill and efficiency of the employee. While Golden Handshake Scheme was to be given to employees of closed units or units totally unviable, VRS was open to all employees of PSUs subject to approval of competent authority.
But as corruption and subversion of rules is rampant in the society, those at the helm of affairs found out ways and means of abusing the scheme just for pecuniary benefits that could be elicited clandestinely. It has come to the notice of the Finance Department that the PSUs are retaining surplus staff as close to their date of retirement as possible. Sources regretted, adding “on the other hand, instances have also been noticed that the employees brought under Golden Handshake Scheme have sought judicial intervention because of which the PSUs are having to pay idle wages and the GHS package, which is higher in comparison to normal retrial outgo, is being given to such pensioners at the eleventh hour, just before their retirement”. In view of complaints as this and others, the Finance Department had constituted a five member Committee headed by then Financial Commissioner (Home) in November 2006. The Committee considered various issues involved in the implementation of Golden Handshake/ Voluntary Retirement Scheme for the employees of PSUs. It accordingly, made recommendations for the rationalization of surplus staff in sick PSUs, having some prospects of becoming viable, and closure of unviable units by offering Golden Handshake or Voluntary Retirement Scheme to such employees, sources said.
After knowing that the scheme was being abused and misused, the Finance Department of the State has taken the right step of instructing the Managing Directors of all PSUs to stop the implementation of the GHS/VRS till further orders. This is the right step but the department should pursue it and set up an enquiry to look into all such irregularities that might have happened in the past and set them right. On the face of it, there seems to be a nexus between the administrative staff and the employees concerned and they might have devised the means of looting the public exchequer by a fraudulent method. If an employees is dissuaded to take GHS/VRS till close to the date of his or her retirement, and is subjected to the scheme at the eleventh hour, obviously the emoluments that he receives under the said scheme is higher than what he might receive if he had retired in ordinary course of events. In this way the public exchequer is defrauded of big money. This is blatant corruption and should be investigated into thoroughly. Evidently the PSUs that are running in loss have either to be shut down or their functionality and productivity have to be improved drastically so that hey become self-reliant. The situation of uncertainty cannot be allowed to go on indefinitely. Therefore the Finance Commissioner-cum- Secretary, Iqbal Khanday, guided by a sense of dedicated service, has taken not only the right but also a bold decision of halting the scheme till things are made clear and corrupt practices are stamped out. His example shows that given the sense of duty, bureaucracy can help eradicate corruption in the administration.
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