Over 38% IPCL staff opt for VRS

IPCL's voluntary retirement scheme has evoked tremendous response. By Thursday morning, over 2,500 employees had already applied for the scheme.

To attract more employees, the RIL management late last evening announced ex-gratia payment of Rs 1.5 lakh to all those who have applied for the scheme.

The phenomenal success of the scheme has made it the largest-ever VRS implemented by the company. In the past, the IPCL management had come out with a similar scheme in 2003 and in 2005.

In 2003, VRS was announced immediately after the RIL takeover and around 1,800 employees had opted for the scheme. In 2005, the scheme had received poor response and there were only 600 takers.

The latest VRS would reduce the employees' strength from about 6,500 employees to around 3,600.

According to sources, though the scheme has been closed officially for non-supervisory employees, there are large numbers of applications in the pipeline waiting for final clearance and so the total number is expected to increase further and touch 3,000 by tomorrow.

For the supervisory category, the scheme would officially end on March 23. However, sources in IPCL confirmed that the scheme would be extended further because of favourable response.

When contacted, RIL spokesperson confirmed that the figure was likely to increase, as many applications were in the pipeline. "We may also extend the scheme further, as there is good response to the scheme and there were no specific norms for any VRS", he said.

The VRS success is expected to turn IPCL Vadodara a lean set-up left with selected employees required for a few plants.