A 30 per cent hike in salary will be given to employees of the State Coir Corporation and Foam Mattings India Limited, public sector undertakings of the State government, Coir and Cooperation Minister G. Sudhakaran announced here on Sunday.
Addressing a press conference, Mr. Sudhakaran said pay revisions were due in both PSUs, with the timeframe set for pay revision in the Coir Corporation expiring in December 2007 and that of Foam Mattings in March 2008.
Salary hike
As per a decision taken at a high-level meeting recently, the Coir Corporation employees will get a minimum hike of Rs.1,500 and a maximum of Rs.3,500 in the salary of January 2008, and a minimum of Rs.2,500 and a maximum of Rs.4,500 in September 2010.
For Foam Mattings employees, the minimum and maximum hike in the salary of April 2008 will be Rs.2,500 and Rs.4,400 respectively and those in September 2010 will be Rs.3,500 and Rs.5,500 respectively. Whether these revisions will have retrospective effect will be decided shortly, the Minister said.
With the pay revisions coming into effect, the additional expense for the government, including a 15 per cent hike that was given in July to employees of Coirfed, a cooperative body, would be Rs.1.27 crore. The government had taken the decision on pay revisions since the cooperative body and both public sector units were now making profits, a rare occurrence. The Coir Corporation, set up in 1969, had been running in losses till 2007, except for a rare profit-making year in 1983.
Profit expected
However, in 2009-2010, the profit was Rs.32.54 lakh and this fiscal, a profit of at least Rs.1 crore was expected, the Minister said, elaborating on the biggest pay revision for the 33 Coir Corporation employees in the last 41 years.
As for Foam Mattings, an undertaking that was once closed down and then reopened, only to continue running in losses, the profit in 2008-2009 was Rs.17 lakh while an additional turnover of 40 per cent was expected this year, following the efforts of the 31 employees there.
The decision on the pay revisions were taken at a meeting held in Kochi in the presence of Mr. Sudhakaran, Coir special secretary Rani George, Coir Development director K. Madanan, Coir Corporation chairman G. Venugopal, managing director P.V. Shashindran, Foam Mattings chairman K.R. Bhageerathan, managing director N. Satyaraj, A.A. Shukoor, MLA, and others.
