Report on Presentation of Memorandum by all FORSE Unit Associations

Ranchi

SAIL Ex-Employees Association-led delegation of over a dozen Retirees (Photo below) met at scheduled time 11.00 AM at RDCIS Main Gate and met seperately the Heads of all the 4 SAIL Units at Ranchi viz RDCIS, CET, MTI, SAIL Safety Orgn. for about 20-30 minutes each. The issues were heard with patience and assurances were given to do what is needed in consultation with others concerned. All the 4 Units report to SAIL Chairman or different Directors

Kolkata

1. Glad to inform we had very cordial meeting with Sri SR Rai, Sr Most ED of CMO Kolkata who came from Delhi this morning, called us in his room offered tea, discussed issues for 40 minutes, Memorandum handed by 15 of us who were inside the room. Meeting very congenial, photograph also taken in groups near Main Gate.--SMS from Sri SK Ghosh (Assn of SAIL Calcutta Superannuated Employees, Kolkata)

2. IISCO Retiree Members of Assn of SAIL Calcutta Superannuated Employees, Kolkata presented the Memorandum for CEO, IISCO to IISCO Kolkata Office 

3. EMD/ SAIL Retirees presented the Memorandum to EMD Head Office Kolkata under the banner of Assn of SAIL Calcutta Superannuated Employees, Kolkata 

4. Mr. Achintya Chaudhury, President, Rourkela Ex-Employees Association, Kolkata sent the Memorandum to CEO, RSP by e-mail (ref: Sri Chaudhary's 12th Aug e-mail copy to me) 

Bhilai

A BSP Ex-OA delegation,led by Shri A.K.Verma, VP and Sri Dilip Verma,GS submitted the memorandum(issued by FORSE) to ED(P&A),BSP in Ispat Bhavan in the forenoon to-day.On being asked about the need of this second memo ,the delegation explained that the earlier one submitted on 5th was as per the decision of the BSP Ex-OA GB and the present memorandum is as per the decision taken by our Apex body FORSE for submission of the core issues to Chairman SAIL in the form of this memorandum,uniformly at all the unit centres of FORSE.

               Regards,

                                S.R.Das

Bokaro

1. About 55 Members of Bokaro Steel Retired Employees Association (BSREA) (seen in above photograph) gathered under the leadership of Sri SNP Gupa, President and Sri Ram Agar Singh, GS at Gandhi Chowk Bokaro at around 4 PM. Sri Singh explained the objective and contents of the Memorandum and called for the views and opinion of the members. More than half a dozen members spoke and supported the programme. In the meantime an Officer from IR Dept of BSL reached the spot and collected the Memorandum from the Association representatives and went back. Parallely, CEO Office also inquired about the Memorandum. The meeting ended with a decision to strengthen the Association by continuing with the on-going Membership drive by involving aall the Members present. (As reported by Sri Ram Agar Singh by Phone)

2. More than a dozen Ex-Employees of SAIL Refractory Unit located at Bokaro and Ramgarh and Members of SAIL Ex-Employees Assn (SEEA) (above photograph) submitted the Memorandum to Head of SAIL Refractory Unit located at Bokaro at 11 AM with Sri Amar Nath Sahay and Jayant Bose leading the team.(by tele - talk with Sri Amar Nath Sahay)

Kerala 

Shri P K Varghese,President and Shri K K G Pillai Organising secretary representing the SEEA,Kerala went to the office of C M O situated on Shanmugham Road, Ernakulam/Kochi and handed over the memorandum to Shri Bhugeswar Lagachu , Sr. Mgr. (Mktg.) at 11.00 A M yesterday. He accepted it ,though reluctantly, and promised to do the needful

                                               --

                                                                                          George Oommen

                                                                                on behalf of SEEA,Kerala

Rourkela

As already intimated to you, President, RSP Retired Employees’ Association had sent the drafted memorandum for the SAIL Chairman, to the CEO, RSP by speed post, on the advice of CEO’s office as it was not possible to get any appointment due to some serious problems in the plant and other busy scheduleS. However as suggested by you once again an appointment was again sought by me on 20^th Aug’2015 but no confirmation came till 6 PM as CEO was not free, due to continued plant problem.

Therefore, another copy of the above mentioned letter of President, RSPREA to CEO, RSP  alongwith a covring letter in the FORSE letter head was handed over to Chief of Protocol,RSP for the needful action. Later on, CEO’s office confirmed that the drafted memorandum had been received and necessary action would be taken and CEO would meet us after he returns from New Delhi.

On 21^st one press release along with a photograph of Executive committee members under the RSPREA’S banner for Memorandum Presentation Programme for Early Decision was given to all local news papers.  A scanned copy of the news item, published in the Samaj(Odisha’s oldest and highest circulated daily Odia news paper) dated 23^rd Aug’2015 is attached herewith. Regards.

Yours Sincerely,

(Abhay Kumar Das) 

Salem

Salem Retirees under the banner of SAIL Salem Steel Plant Ex-Employees Association gave the Memorandum today to ED, Salem Steel Plant.  (based on msg from Salem Association)

Bhadravati

On 20th & 21st Hon'ble Steel Minister had visited VISL for reviewing its revival plan. Sri Ananthakumar, Central Minister, Yadiurappa MP, Ayanoor Manjanath, MP Rajysabha, Director Technical &  other SAIL officers accompanied him.

As per the advice of Sri Sharmaji we along with 20 EC members had handed over the Memorandum directly to the Minister. Due to his hectic program he could not  spare more time  with us. Anyhow he had agreed to give appointment to FORSE office bearers to discuss about our grievances freely. (See Photographs)

--

JS Nagabhushan

President

VISL REWC  Bhadravati

Memorandum sent to SAIL Chairman

Copy to: ED(P&A) SAIL Corp Office & Vaani Kapoor

Urgency required in resolving Pension issues for SAIL Retirees

                                           e-mail: chairman.sail@sailex.com

3rd August 2015

Sri Rakesh Singh,IAS

Secretary, Dept of Steel, Govt of India 

& Chairman,SAIL, New Delhi.

Sub: Urgency required in resolving Pension issues

Ref: Our letter No. FORSE/Ch/SAIL-0715 dated 11^th June 2015

Dear Sir,

Further to our e-mail message of 31st July 2015 regarding SAIL Mediclaim Scheme we would like to invite your kind attention with urgency to the ever delayed and unimplemented most important aspects of a Retiree, that is, Pension and other financial benefits for the SAIL Retirees. Please refer to our above letter addressed to you on the delay in resolving the issues faced by SAIL Retirees in various ways (http://sailex.blogspot.in/2015/06/appeal-to-new-sail-chairman-for-urgent.html). So far there is no response from SAIL addressed directly. However, a reply by SAIL (http://sailex.blogspot.in/2015/04/letter-to-pm-for-creation-of-schemes.html)  

We would like to provide a brief in the following paras  

1.    SAIL did not have a Pension Scheme. (When people started retiring and pension proposals were made by the PSUs including SAIL,Govt declared EPS-95 under which retirees are getting a few hundred only. This is redundant after 2006 due to new pension schemes in the PSUs for post-2006 retirees)

2.    For post-2006 retirees: Under DPE OMs SAIL is providing in its accounts 30% of total salary payment over and above it towards retirement benefit such as Gratuity, PF contribution by SAIL, Health benefit & Pension for post-2006 retirees. Provisions were also made in the Annual Accounts towards the above expenditure. It may please be noted that most of the other PSUs – BHEL, NTPC, NLC, Oil PSUs. etc. - have already implemented. Out of sheer inefficiency and absence of strong will SAIL has shifted the date of implementing the proposed pension scheme for this category of employees from 1^st January 2007 to 2012.(http://sailex.blogspot.in/2015/03/proposed-sail-pension-scheme-for.html) but not implemented so far for reasons better known to SAIL. Is SAIL fair to the retirees? Does SAIL expect the retirees to wither away so that all do not get benefit and thus SAIL will save money to call itself more than a Maharatna?

3.    For Pre-2007 retirees: This set of retirees exist today in real miserable condition and some of them in much worse condition than those in BPL category and who are yet in suspense for over 6 years on formulation and implementation of the Pension and other benefit schemes when SAIL maintains total silence all through.

a)    Just to refresh, after considering a lot of representations, discussion points and appeals, SCOPE recommended and the DPE issued an OM in July 2009 asking Maharatna PSUs incl. SAIL to create a corpus from 1.5 % of their Profit Before Tax (PBT) and prepare a post retirement benefit schemes for pre-2007 retirees which may include financial benefits like Pension, monthly income and fixed emergency support like ex-gratia payment etc.in addition to Health care facilities. SAIL refused to follow the DPE OMs in this regard for all the wrong reasons. Our innumerable request to SAIL for a meeting as well as for preparing a Scheme under OMs ended in silence on the other side.  

b)    SAIL’s contribution for retirement benefits of pre-2007 retirees has been much less – around 16% against around 30% for post-2006 retirees. There is no rational for this differentiation between these two artificially and arbitrarily created set of retirees by the Govt. Having been born earlier and worked from the inception of HSL/ SAIL helping to lay a strong foundation under a very difficult environment and working conditions (during 1950/60s) to make proud of it as Maharatna, it has proven to be a sin for these pre-2007 retirees.

c) The condition of early retirees in Eighties, Nineties and early years of the current century is more severe as they had separated with very meager superannuatory benefits and these parked money already exhausted to meet their day to day needs and rising health care expenses with interest rates touching rock bottom. Many of them who are in their 70s & 80s are still alive.

d) By providing more than one lakh retires with adequate pension and welfare benefits at par with some other PSUs and also the necessity propagated by national and International forum by way of discharging corporate social responsibility, the ex-employer SAIL will immensely help already dwindling these extremely distressed persons to survive a little longer in their last phase of life with dignity & with adequate medical attention. 

4. Issues related to payment to erstwhile subsidiary employees: Payment of arrears to employees of IISCO and Bharat Refractories Ltd. (now SAIL Refractory Unit) are also due for long.

           I.        IISCO, Burnpur: our request made on 27^th Nov. 2014 followed by No. Forse/ Ch/ 0615 dated May 06, 2015 for urgent release of payment of arrears to employees of IISCO retired between 01.01.1997 and 31.01.2006 is yet to be looked into. Such a delay of over 9-10 years in decision making does not show SAIL in a good light.

          II.        SAIL Refractory Unit: to expedite payment of arrear accruing out of wage revision from 1997 for erstwhile BRL employees, which was a deemed liability on the date of amalgamation i.e. 01/04/2007. A sum of Rs.10000/- was also paid as advance against the same and was not to be recovered as per the notification in the Gazette of India dt. July 28, 2009 justifying the resultant effect of accrual and payability to the retirees.   

5. Worse of it all is that SAIL or the Government Officials responsible for finding solution and helping the Retirees / Senior Citizens do not respond to our communications because of which the Communication gap and misunderstanding between the Retirees and SAIL/Government system increases. The decision initiators in SAIL or Govt unfortunately appears to be unable to view the condition of these early retirees with empathy as they belong to next generation & have no idea of the contribution by these persons at the initial stage (1950s/ 60s) and immediate and long term needs of a Retiree in today's context. The Govt views on Senior Citizens detailed in its portal seem to be meaningless for the decision makers and implementing authorities.

Considering the facts detailed above we appeal to you to take extra initiative to resolve and start payment of Pension and other financial benefits and improvement in Healthcare facilities with a mission and empathy through SAIL Mediclaim Scheme. It would be easier if SAIL recognises FORSE and calls us for a meeting at the earliest. SAIL Chairman, if need be, may take up the issues with the Hon’ble Union Minister of Steel / Govt. of India to help whenever and wherever required in implementing the DPE OMs for pre-2007 and post -2006 category of Retirees without further delay, if need be, by

i.   Creating Corpus out of 1.5% of PBT since 1st Jan 2007.

ii   Permitting transfer of unclaimed Provident Fund money to the SAIL corpus

iii  Transferring back 1% of the dividend money

iv. Starting a Fixed deposit scheme for retirees with ROI at par with the interest rates paid by SAIL on money borrowed from the market.

v. Implementing with a mission & empathy an effective, efficient and functioning Healthcare scheme at par with those available to current employees with or without Mediclaim Insurance with provision of annual increase in the cost of healthcare as they do not have any other support. 

With regards, 

Best Wishes, 

--

Dr.V.N.Sharma, Chairman

Federation of Retired SAIL Employees

Ph: 0651-2441524; M: 9431102680 

http://tinyurl.com/forsesail 

groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/forsesail     

e-mail copy:

asfasteel@nic.in,
s.barthwal@nic.in,
secy.sail@sailex.com,
df sail <anil.chaudhary@sailex.com>,
shitanshu.prasad@sailex.com,
Vaani Kapoor <vaani.kapoor@gmail.com>,
forsesail@googlegroups.com,
sailex-core@googlegroups.com,
"seearanchi@googlegroups.com" <seearanchi@googlegroups.com>,
asp-retirees@googlegroups.com,
salem-retirees@googlegroups.com,
bhilai-retirees@googlegroups.com,
bokaro-retirees@googlegroups.com