Retirement age and wage revision for employees of Indian Telephone Industries

(a) & (b)  Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) Limited, a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology has six manufacturing Plants located at Bangaluru (Karnataka), Palakkad (Kerala), Srinagar (Jammu & Kashmir) and Naini, Rae Bareli and Mankapur ( all 3 in Uttar Pradesh). The service conditions including age of superannuation are common to all the employees working in various Plants of the Company including Raebareli Plant. There is no proposal from Department of Telecommunications (DOT) to enhance the retirement age of employees working in Raebareli Plant alone. 

(c) & (d) The pay scales of employees working in various Plants of the Company including Raebareli Plant were last revised in year 2000 based on 1st Pay Revision Committee ( year 1997) recommendations. However, on account of losses incurred during the last several years, the company has already been referred to BIFR (Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction) and declared sick by BIFR in 2004. DOT has prepared a revival plan of Rs. 4156.79 Crores for ITI which is yet to be approved by BRPSE (Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises)/ Cabinet. The revival plan includes Salary/Establishment cost during revival plan period and 39 months arrears pertaining to above pay revision. 

(e) & (f) As a cost cutting measure, ITI Management had suspended/withdrawn certain facilities like Annual Advance, School Fee Reimbursement, Uniform including Footwear, Privilege Leave (PL) Encashment and Liberalized Leave Travel Concession (LLTC) Encashment from 2003-04. Subsequently, after review of the Company’s financial position, the management has already restored PL Encashment, LLTC Encashment and Uniform to all its employees including Raebareli Plant in consultation with representatives of recognized unions and Officers Associations. However, ITI is not in a position to restore the other allowances like festival advance, children education allowance and footwear to employees due to poor financial health and continuous losses.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF  COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

RAJYA SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-3010

Retirement age and wage revsion for employees of I.T.I.

(a) whether Government is contemplating to raise the retirement age of employees of Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) Ltd., Raebareli from 58 to 60 years;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) whether salary/wages of employees of ITI, Raebareli have not been revised for the last fourteen years;

(d) if so, the reasons therefor and the steps taken to revise the salary/wages thereof;

(e) whether Government has discontinued the Children Education Allowance, Festival Allowance, Uniform, Shoes, POL, etc., admissible to the employees earlier; and

(f) if so, the reasons therefor and the steps taken to provide these facilities again to employees of ITI, Raebareli?

ANSWER