Representation       

On Saturday alone, around 500 employees of both government and PSUs superannuated

The port city has around 1,00,000 workforce, including around 35,000 government employees of more than 90 departments and their affiliated sections and organisations, along with several thousands of workers of the PSUs like Vizag Steel Plant, Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT), Hindustan Shipyard Ltd (HSL), Dredging Corporation, BHEL (BHPV) and oil companies. Now, the government departments and some of the PSUs face severe staff crunch as there are no new recruitment drives and a number of existing employees have retired. 

On Saturday alone, around 500 employees of both government and PSUs superannuated. Among them, more than 100 are from the VSP, 38 from the HSL and 54 from the GVMC. Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, also faces staff shortage problem as there is no recruitment for a long time and people retire every year.

As per the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the initial sanctioned strength, 20,000 employees were required for the plant and around 2,000 for the newly expanded wings. But the plant at present has around 17,000 employees. On June 30, about 100 employees attained superannuation and in the next few months another 500 will retire. Since 1982, around 3,600 employees retired from the service and another 1,200 staff either died or discontinued from service due to ill health. Another 2,900 employees left their jobs for various reasons. Since 2008, the RINL has recruited around 2,800 staff, including officers and workers, now the total number of the employees is over 17,500. 

“There is staff shortage in many departments of RINL but the management is not interested in filling the vacant posts. They are giving priority to outsource contract employees to reduce financial burden. But workers are worried about job security and work pressure on them may reflect on their performance. 

For a long time thousands of R-card holders have been eagerly waiting for employment. We are demanding fresh recruitment,” said RINL INTUC leader M Rajasekhar.