20 Wednesday Sep 2017
Posted in PSU
One day National Workshop will be organised by the Central Trade Unions on 22nd October 2017 at Hyderabad on the issue of wage revision for PSU employees. This is in view of the adverse recommendations of the III Pay Revision Committee for Executives in central PSUs, which directed that only employees in profitable PSUs will get wage revision. This is an attack on the executives and non-executives in the PSUs.
We congratulate the CTUs for taking the decision and holding the Convention!
15 Friday Sep 2017
Posted in PSU
While the Central Government has completely forgotten its election promise of generating employment of 2 crores every year it is aggressively working in selling all the PSUs which will reduce employment opportunities – It always has been the double-speak of this government –
The central government has called for two financial advisers and one legal adviser for strategic disinvestment of Air India – It stated that ‘the government has in-principle decided to consider the disinvestment of the Air India Group as a whole or its constituents fully or part there of through strategic sale with transfer of management control’ –
‘Selling the family silver’ or ‘gifting the nation’s wealth’ to private players?
21 Monday Aug 2017
Posted in PSU
More than 10 lakh bank workers will be going on strike on 22nd August 2017 on the call of the United Form of Bank Unions (UFBU), against the decision to merge the banks, privatisation of banks etc. As usual, the strike will be full success with all the banks closed, as is usual with the bank strikes. UFBU includes all the unions/associations in the banks.
The government is making all out efforts to destroy the public banks and hand over them to private. De-nationalisation of banks is its slogan. Recently it was reported that the Prime Minister told that all the PSUs are born to die. It can said in another way that the government is going to privatise or close the whole PSUs, which strengthened the country economically and helped India to pass over from the 2007-8 world economic crisis.
Full solidarity and support to the strike of the Bank Workers! The government should withdraw from the attacks on the Banks and their employees.!
17 Thursday Aug 2017
Posted in Disinvestment, PSU
Accepting the proposal of the ‘365 X 24 hours working’ Department of Disinvestment, the central government has constituted a Group of Ministers with Finance Minister, Minister for Road Transport and High Ways and Minister for Administrative Department to decide on the terms and conditions of the sale of the public sector units.
The Cabinet also approved empowered the Core Group of Secretaries to take policy decisions on the procedural issues of these strategic sales of PSUs.
It seems that the government wants to gift all the PSUs to the corporates before the 5 year term of the Modi Government is over.
03 Thursday Aug 2017
Posted in PSU
Tags
Labour Department of Kerala LDF government has issued orders for payment of minimum bonus to the state PSU employees. Bonus will be 8.33% of the basic pay. This minimum bonus is applicable to all those workers getting pay up to 21,000. The order has been issued well in advance of Onam, the major festival of Kerala, so that the workers will get the Bonus in time.
Kerala Government is also trying to strengthen the state PSUs and make them profitable, which have all gone loss making during UDF rule.
07 Friday Jul 2017
Communications Minister Manoj Sinha had stated that the government is preparing a New Telecom Policy which will will be discussed with all stake holders. The report in the press is given below. Every time a New Telecom Policy has been announced, it has been for the benefit of the private companies. The first NTP was to allow the private companies to enter the telecom sector. Every NTP afterwards has been in favour of the private corporates. it is certain that this will also be in the same route.
“New Delhi: A national telecom policy is currently under formulation and will be made public “soon” for stakeholder consultation, telecom minister Manoj Sinha has said.
The upcoming policy will look at areas like technology innovation and security as well as plug “loopholes”, the minister promised but did not elaborate on the specifics.
“We are framing national telecom policy…we have done a lot of work on this. Once it is formulated, we will put in on the website for comments of general public, academia, industry and then we will go to the Parliament,” the minister told PTI in an interview.
He said that at a broad level, the policy will be driven by technology innovations, among other aspects. “There are many things which change with time…we will take all that into consideration,” he said, adding it will also address “loopholes”. He was responding to a question on gaps that the new policy will seek to address over the National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012.
Asked about the time frame for finalising the new policy, Sinha said he expected it “soon”. “I am hopeful that it will come soon. First, we will initiate a consultation…maybe the implementation will take some time but we will soon put in on the website so we can seek people’s opinion,” he pointed out.
Sinha vowed that reforms, especially consumer-centric ones, will continue in the telecom sector and hinted that some announcements were in the offing. “Reforms will continue…Yes, it will move, and move swiftly…you will soon see some things…In the coming days, there will be some news regarding reforms, and it will be consumer-centric,” he said but declined to divulge details.
The telecom ministry has issued technology-neutral telecom licences under the NTP 2012 which was de-linked from spectrum. Other reforms that have been undertaken include finalisation of spectrum trading and sharing rules, full mobile number portability, increasing spectrum supply for the industry, Right of Way norms and electronic know-your-customer (KYC). However, it is yet to meet certain targets like 2-megabits-per-second broadband speed for consumers and formation of the National Mobile Property Registry.”
06 Thursday Jul 2017
Posted in PSU
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Government and private banks have been scheming for long how to hand over the big corpus of EPFO for maximisation of the profit of the private banks and corporates. As like any other order, without discussing the stakeholders ie. the employees and their unions, the EPFO has signed an agreement with four private banks and also PSU Bank, Bank of Baroda, for collection of provident fund dues and payments to the subscribers. The private banks are ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. EPFO had earlier tied up with the PSU Banks viz. Punjab National Bank, Allahabad Bank, Indian Bank and Union Bank of India.
Earlier justification of agreement with banks was that they are PSU Banks. Now the private banks are also included.
There is no security for the amount put in the private banks. Once the bank is collapsed, the subscribers will be cheated of their hard earned savings.
30 Friday Jun 2017
Posted in PSU
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New Delhi, June 30: The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
No Privatisation of Air India
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) strongly opposes the decision of the Modi government to privatise the national carrier, Air India. The Union Cabinet has accepted the recommendations of the Niti Ayog and given an in-principle agreement for the disinvestment of Air India and its five subsidiaries.
This decision has been taken at a time when, after prolonged losses since 2008, the airline has started achieving operating profits of Rs. 105 crore for the year 2015-16 and an estimated operating profit of around Rs. 300 crore in 2016-17.
Air India was crippled and burdened with debt due to monumental miscalculation and certain wrong decisions taken by successive governments at the Centre. It is now being made the scapegoat and sought to be privatized.
The privatization of Air India is being made with a bonanza to the perspective private buyer – the write off of the Rs. 30,000 crore debt burden. The privatization of Air India is not for saving public money but for handing over national assets for a song and defrauding the exchequer for the benefit of private companies, both domestic and foreign.
The sale of Air India is part of the overall privatization drive of the Modi government which is against national interest. It must be stopped forthwith.
30 Friday Jun 2017
Posted in PSU
Tags
The Central government is moving fast for strategic sale of Air India, the government owned Airlines, which has been functioning for the last more than seven decades as the Prime Airline in India on both International and domestic routes.
The policy decisions taken by the continuing central governments, like purchasing about 111 planes where there was requirement only for about 35 planes, merging Air India and Indian Airlines, handing over its routes to private companies etc. created such a situation that Air India started incurring losses. The non-payment of large amount of bills by the Central and State governments was another reason. It is understood that many such amount has been written off.
In short, the government itself is fully responsible for the present state of affairs of Air India. Even while it is in loss as per accounts due to the large loans, interest etc. Air India has been posting operational profit for the last few years. A good management with the support of the government would have restored Air India to its glorious past. But the government is intended on sale of the Air India as per its neo-liberal policy completely supporting the corporates to garner profit.
The latest information is that Indigo Airlines has informed its interest in taking over Air India, mainly its international flights. There will be other companies also including foreign airlines.
Will Air India become a nostalgic memory of the past? Whether struggles by the Air India Staff, central trade unions and progressive section of the people will save Air India from privatisation?
28 Wednesday Jun 2017
Posted in Disinvestment, PSU
Tags
The Cabinet today decided to disinvest Air India. The report by the PTI is given below:
“The Union Cabinet today, 28th June 2017, cleared disinvestment of debt-laden Air India but the final modalities, including the quantum of stake sale, will be decided by a group of ministers.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Cabinet has given “in-principle” approval for disinvestment of Air India.
A group will be set up to finalise modalities/details of disinvestment of Air India, including the quantum of stake sale, he said.
The civil aviation ministry is charting out the disinvestment of the state-run carrier.
Surviving on taxpayers’ money, Air India has been in the red for long and various proposals, including government think tank Niti Aayog’s suggestion for complete privatisation, have been made.
The airline has a debt of more than Rs 52,000 crore and is surviving on a Rs 30,000-crore bailout package extended by the previous UPA government in 2012. “
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