PPL employees submit memorandum to PM

New Delhi, Oct 30 (UNI) The employees of state-owned Paradeep Phosphates Ltd (PPL) today submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh against the company's disinvestment to Zuari Maroc Phosphates Private Ltd (ZMPPL).

Demanding the Prime Minister's intervention into the matter, the company's Ex-employees Association reiterated that the post deal PPL offices in Delhi, Bihar, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat were closed and more than 90 per cent of the employees were coerced into accepting VRS.

However, the employees alleged that they are being paid between Rs 500 and Rs 900, which is insufficient to run their families.

They said ZMPPL had promised that no employee would be retrenched, but the private company used transfer as ''a weapon to destabilise us.'' Further, leave encashment and medical benefits were not included in the VRS package, they alleged.

''We will also approach the Law Ministry with a demand to investigate the deal in all its aspects, which has coerced a number of employees into seeking voluntary retirement,'' Association President Sunita Anand and General Secretary Amarjeet Kaur said in a statement yesterday.

''When the company was privatised, employees of various departments were offered various inventive schemes. Even though they achieved the targets, they were forced to accept VRS and were deprived of the benefits of incentive schemes,'' they added.

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