The Hindu Business Line : Bleak prospects worries KIOCL employees

Bangalore May 22 With hope receding after the Supreme order of December last year on reviving mining operations by Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd (KIOCL), its employees are worried about their future.

Even as their jobs will be protected with full salary and benefits till the company fulfils its statutory obligation of winding up its establishment in two years in Kudremukh, 910 employees have been knocking on the doors of the Government and the company for a suitable rehabilitation scheme.

The company has announced a fresh round of VRS that the employees' union has said is unacceptable, since the priority is job security and redeployment.

But the spectre of dislocation of their families and discontinuity of children's education at the crucial stage has deepened their worries.

" VRS is not our first choice," the employees told Business Line.

Union proposal

Mr A.M. Gopinath, General Secretary of the Kudremukh Employees Union, said that the union submitted a proposal to the Steel Secretary during his visit to Kudremukh in March.

It lists, among other things, job security for all employees or ensuring full salary payment for the remaining service in the revised scale, promotion benefits taking into service up to superannuation and a compensation of Rs 10 lakh towards medical and education.

It has sought an additional Rs 10 lakh compensation to employees whose land was acquired by the company for building the township.

A senior company executive said that KIOCL was bound only by the Government guidelines on VRS and the union's demand fall outside its realm.

It can be considered only at a higher level, like the Union Cabinet.

The inordinate delay in getting approvals for alternative plans has put paid to KIOCL's efforts in redeploying Kudremukh staff effectively.

The company has planned a second pelletisation plant in Orissa, coinciding with its acquisition of a large mine in the State.

KIOCL, a 100 per cent EOU, hopes to continue its pelletisation production in Mangalore with a reduced supply of ore with its existing tie-up with NMDC.

It incurred additional costs in modifying the production process to handle hematite ore after the magnetite ore source ended last year.

This has also affected its competitive edge slightly, having lost its own reserves, said a senior official of the Mangalore plant.

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