Letter to CMD for enhancing medical dependancy limit

Sir,

We would like to draw your attention to the letter referred above which we had written to you on 2nd February, 2007. The copy of that letter is enclosed for your ready reference at Annexure I. In that letter we had attached the judgement of Hon’ble Supreme Court as well as implementation of the same in NTPC.

We are further attaching the orders of Power Finance Corporation and Power Transmission Corp. Both these companies have also implemented the said order of the Supreme Court. The above point was also discussed on 24th April, 2007 with Director (HR) at Mumbai and it was agreed to implement the same in ONGC also.

However, till date the issue has not seen the light of the day. We are once again emphasizing that the judgement of the court was that the family of an individual shall be treated as wholly dependant on the employee irrespective of the pension being drawn by the father/parent of the employee.

For the purpose of medical dependency, the same has been implemented in various PSUs. The orders of various PSUs are placed at Annexure II.

Sir, the average medical expenditure per employee per annum in ONGC is around Rs. 6500 plus or minus Rs. 500. Including this clause shall not be adding much to the expenditure on medical facilities to ONGC. Further, it would be a major deterrent for employees while deciding their career options with ONGC.

While going through the Annual results of Financial Year 2007, we came across an expenditure of nearly Rs. 390 crores towards post retirement Medical and other benefit. This expenditure shows the concern of the management towards this issue.

However, the necessary orders for enhancing the limits irrespective of the pension amount for the existing employees have not been issued so far.

It is requested that the same may be implemented and necessary orders be issued as per the Supreme Court judgement.

With regards,

(Amit Kumar)     
President, ASTO, Delhi