All the above and many more reforms have been recommended by ‘Panel of Experts on Reforms in Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs)’ appointed by Planning Commission vide their Order No. 1&M 14(30)/2010 dated 13.08.2010 in its report which has been submitted by the Panel in Nov.’2011. The entire report is available  at the planning commission website.

It may also be appreciated that there is wide difference in the compensation pay package provided by private sector in India to its employees and CPSE pay package which was revised w.e.f. 1.1.2007 in 2009 uniformly to all CPSE irrespective of its financial or market status. Also, it may be noted that Indian rupee got devalued by approx. Rs.15 or 37 % over last four years as compared to US $. In domestic market also, the purchase power of Indian rupee has decreased by more than 60 % as per AICPI data also and this does not include many factors which affect the cost of living like cost of house/ flat, rental value etc.

Therefore, many competent professionals leave CPSE and such brain drain contributes negatively to the competitiveness of CPSE in today’s era of disinvestment of CPSE.

In this context, the initiative of Planning Commission in setting up of expert panel and the report submitted by the panel needs to be appreciated. But all the good work will be wasted if the report is not implemented in a time bound manner since it will not only benefit the employees but will also bring about an era of professional and corporate management or governance in CPSE working culture.

At the same time, we, the employees of Maharatna PSUs should not underestimate our strength. It may be noted that the combined employee strength of Maharatna CPSE is approx. 5.75 lakhs. If we consider average employee paying annual income tax of Rs. 2.0 lakhs, then, the Maharatna employees only (leaving Navratna, Miniratna and other CPSE) contribute Rs. 11,500 crores annually to national exchequer in the form of income tax. Moreover, majority of Maharatna employees are shareholders of the companies they are serving in.

Therefore, we, the stakeholders and tax payer employees of CPSE should be aware of all the facts about our companies and rights of timely wage revision as per market conditions. It is felt that a concerted campaign needs to be started in this direction at the earliest to generate awareness among employees and force Govt. to implement the report of ‘Panel of Experts on Reforms in Central Public Sector Enterprises’ in a time bound manner which has been gathering dust since November 2011.

Volunteers for this campaign are requested to please intimate their contact details and are welcome to join and contribute in this regard. A detailed action plan shall be prepared and published in due course of time.