The Hindu Business Line : VRS in offing for cargo handlers at Paradip port

A VOLUNTARY retirement scheme (VRS) for the workers engaged in unloading cargo from trucks and railway wagons in the Paradip Port Trust (PPT) is on the anvil.

According to informed sources, these workers, belonging to the clearing, forwarding and handling workers' pool, are not employees of PPT. They are engaged by private firms that undertake the job of clearing and forwarding and other related work in the port.

A large number of these workers, it is felt, will be rendered redundant once the mechanised coal handling facility, set up at the port with assistance from the Asian Development Bank, starts operating in full swing. This is because the unloading of wagons in the mechanised plant will be undertaken mechanically without the help of manual workers.

The mechanised coal handling process has already started, though on a limited scale. The facility has the capacity to handle 20 million tonnes annually, or roughly 18 lakh tonnes every month on an average.

Right now, the facility is handling about three to four lakh tonnes a month. It will be gradually stepped up to six lakh tonnes in the next two to three months and further in due course as and when the requirements of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) increase.

Gem of Ennore, the 60,000-dwt bulk carrier now engaged in overseas trade, will enter the Paradip port sometime in March for loading coal for TNEB to be unloaded at the Ennore Port. Thereafter the carrier will be regularly shuttling between the two ports. In May, she will be joined by two Panamax vessels, each of 65,000-dwt.

The total strength of the clearing, forwarding and handling workers' pool is about 1,500. In the first phase, about 500 of them might be offered VRS, it is learnt. While the VRS package is yet to be finalised, each worker, it is estimated, can hope to get around Rs three to four lakh on an average. This will cost the VRS package nearly Rs 20 crore

The funding of VRS, it is learnt, will be done partly from the funds built from the levy collected from the employers to run the pool. The Paradip Port Trust (PPT) too, may not be averse to chipping in some money towards the funding. However, the sharing of the cost between the management committee of the workers' pool and PPT is yet to be decided.

The pool at Paradip, it is felt, will not be disbanded altogether even after the mechanised coal handling plant starts running in full swing. This is because manual unloading of several items other than coal from trucks and railways wagons will continue. These items are iron ore, charge chrome, chrome concentrate etc.

In fact some quantities of coal for power houses and other consumers in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh will be brought to the port by trucks and conventional Box-N wagons and therefore unloaded manually. Ideally, the size of the pool should not exceed 700, the sources observed.

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