It's back to school for IPCL staffers

The technical manpower of Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd (IPCL) is learning the hard way "" going back to academics. In an interesting development, the IPCL management has started sending back its non-supervisory category employees to the university for a rigorous two-year training programme in chemical engineering. The company's efforts to train its staff are in association with MS University of Baroda.

To begin with, IPCL picked 40 employees from the non-supervisory category after putting its fir st target batch for the two-year training programme in chemical engineering through a written, competitive test.

The batch has already started attending classes since September 1. The second batch is also selected and will go to the university soon. When contacted, IPCL spokesperson confirmed that the programme is offered to the non-supervisory category employees on the basis of their score in a written examination.

IPCL intends to extend the programme, titled 'Educational Enhancement Programme for Technical Staff at Operator Level', to most of its 3,000-odd operator-level employees.

Manpower trained for two years with the help of technology faculty of MS University will be deployed to one of the RIL projects including Jamnagar refinery greenfield expansion. To ensure that post-training the employees are retained, they are to made sign a bond for three years.

RIL is planning to reduce the manpower from IPCL's Baroda complex since its acquisition. RIL has offered two voluntary retirement schemes (VRS) to IPCL employees and managed to reduce the staff strength from 13,000 to around 7,000 now. VRS was granted to all those who applied for it.

Out of over 7,000 personnel at the Baroda complex, over 3,000 are working in the non-supervisory category as operators. According to sources, the IPCL management is interested in this critical mass for its future requirement at the Jamnagar project.

In fact, staff from the Hazira project is also being prepared for the possible posting at the Jamnagar refinery.