The Hindu Business Line : IFCI staff hope to stall merger with PNB

THE victory of the Congress-led alliance has kindled fresh hope among IFCI employees of blocking the ongoing process of merger of the institution with Punjab National Bank (PNB).

The employees have been lobbying hard for stalling the merger. "The election results have brought about the possibility of a rethink on the entire issue. We are hopeful that the new Government would give due consideration to our views on the merger," said Mr Madan Lal, General Secretary, All India IFCI Employees' Association, (AIIEA).

He said that the union would now place afresh before the new Government its proposal for a mega merger between existing development financial institutions. "We would like to press for a merger between IFCI, IDBI, IDFC and IIBI," Mr Madal Lal said.

He also felt that in view of the political change there might be very few takers for the ongoing voluntary retirement scheme (VRS). "The IFCI staff, both officers and employees, would like to wait and watch. Most of us might not take this round of the VRS offer," he said.

The ongoing round of VRS has been extended till May 31. The scheme that was earlier scheduled to close on March 31 had to be extended by the IFCI board due to poor response from the employees. The ongoing round is also the second VRS offer, with the first round having been kept open from October 15 to November 28, 2003.

Ever since the talks of a possible merger with PNB had surfaced in January this year, the IFCI unions have been trying hard to impress upon the Government that it would be proper to explore the possibility of merger with other DFIs in order to create a sound institution that would take care of the long term finance need of Indian industry. The merger of IFCI with PNB is in its early stages with the valuation exercise being presently conducted.

While at one point, the IFCI unions had sought a merger only with IDBI since the latter was also going through a period of restructuring; it had later changed its stand and proposed a mega four-way merger including IIBI and IDFC.

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