The Hindu Business Line : PSU oil sector officers demand four-fold rise in pay packet

New Delhi, June 17 Seeking to bridge the gap between the wages offered by the private sector and public sector oil companies, officers of the oil PSUs have sought an over four-fold increase in the basic salary of entry level officials and almost 11-fold increase in salaries of the board-level directors.

Addressing a press conference in the Capital, the Convenor, Oil Sector Officers’ Association, Mr Ashok Singh, said that an officer starting his career with a public sector oil company should be given a basic pay of Rs 50,000 compared with Rs 12,000 currently, while a board-level person should be paid Rs 300,000 a month, instead of the Rs 28,000 offered at present.

“All the public sector oil companies have been hit by attrition and more than 2,000 officers have left mainly due to the massive differential in compensation offered by the private sector and public sector oil companies.

“The Justice Rao Committee has totally failed to bridge the gap. The Government should set up a tripartite committee to look into the wages which should be paid to officers of public sector oil companies,” Mr Singh said.

The association includes officers of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Oil India, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. The association said that the monthly compensation being offered to an officer starting his career with a private sector oil company ran into several lakhs of rupees, while senior officials were offered even more.

To get the Government to accept its demand, the association will launch an agitation from June 24 with a protest before the Oil Ministry, followed by a 36-hour hunger strike at the corporate office of ONGC the following day. “If the Government negotiates with us then there will be no agitation,” Mr Singh said.

However, if the issue is not resolved by June 26, the association threatened to go on an indefinite strike that will affect availability of oil products throughout the country.