Power firms battling exodus
Power firms battling exodus
New Delhi: Public sector power companies are the latest to fall prey to attrition with cash-rich private utilities poaching on key personnel with plump pay packages.
“Due to renewed interest shown by private developers in the power sector particularly in hydel power, there is a heavy demand for experienced personnel in the country. This has led to a high attrition rate in Public Sector Units (PSU) including NHPC," Minister of State for Power Jairam Ramesh has said.
The attrition is not only an issue with power PSUs but other state—owned entities in as diverse areas as petroleum, steel and trading, to overcome which their apex body SCOPE is pressing government with expeditious implementation of the recommendations of the second Pay Revision Committee for officials and non-unionised supervisors.
State-run power companies are the favourite hunting grounds for private firms like GMR Energy, Lanco Infratech and Reliance Power who are looking for experienced manpower to drive their expansion plans.
On an average 5-10% people from the public sector companies are joining private firms annually with NHPC losing a considerable amount of workforce to the private players.
“We are not the only sector which is fighting exodus but it is present everywhere, in all the sectors," NHPC CMD S K Garg said.
“This happens when private players come, but we are recruiting people this year through campus selections and also some on ad-hoc basis," Garg said.
Total number of engineers in NHPC are 1,680. On an average, over 50 engineers has left the company every year in the past three years.
Public sector power companies are attempting to meet the shortage by fresh recruitments. NHPC would enroll 10 final year CA students from their apex body Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and train them at its corporate office in Faridabad.
State-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd aims for a workforce of 50,000 by the year 2012 and also plans to recruit 20,000 people by that time.
Not to fall behind, private power generating firms such as Reliance Power, GMR Energy, Alstom are recruiting around 100 people on an annual basis.
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