Joshi set to clear proposed Maruti Udyog divestment

NEW DELHI: Heavy Industry Minister Manohar Joshi is likely to clear the proposed Maruti privatisation plan agreed by Suzuki and the Disinvestment Ministry.

The minister told reporters here on Saturday that he was studying the proposal. He, however, refused to divulge details of the agreement.

Earlier, Joshi said that the government had decided to take major initiatives with a view to improving the safety net for workers of PSEs. He was addressing the conference of chief executives of PSEs.

The government has decided to focus on retraining for self-employment of PSE workers opting for the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS).

The programme comprises counselling, training and follow up before rehabilitation of these workers.

The programme is to be conducted through reputed training agencies that have already been identified to ensure coverage of as many VRS optees in the current financial year as possible, the minister said.

Besides, the VRS benefits have already been enhanced as per the VRS scheme revised in November 2001 for employees of PSEs where either the 1992 revision or the 1997 revision has not been given.

Out of a total of 236 PSEs, 31 PSEs employing 80,000 workers are still on the 1987 pay scales. 58 PSEs are still on the pay scales of 1992. These employee 2 lakh employees.

The top 10 PSEs selected for MoU award for excellence in performance for 2000-01 are: BPCL, Engineering Projects India, GAIL, HPCL, Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals, NTPC, National Mineral Dev Corpn, PEC and Power Grid Corpn of India.

He further said that the turnover of 234 operating Public sector undertakings was Rs 4,58,227 crore in 2000-01 which is equivalent to a quarter of the total annual gross domestic product.