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No plans to shift ITI office to Delhi: Union Ministry

P. Manoj

Workers not convinced by Government's assertion

BANGALORE: The Union Ministry of Communications has said that plans are afoot to relocate a couple of "very senior officials, including the Chairman and Managing Director and a few key directors" of the ailing public sector telecom equipment maker Indian Telephone Industries Limited from Bangalore to New Delhi.

"However, there is no proposal whatsoever for shifting the entire corporate office of ITI Ltd. to Delhi," an official of the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran told The Hindu.

"For functional requirements, a couple of very senior officers may be shifted to Delhi so that Uttar Pradesh where ITI units are being revived with support from Alcatel can be monitored properly and the company is revived in the best interests of the employees," he asserted adding that "nothing has been finalised so far."

Protests

The statement comes amid rumours that the Union Government is planning to shift the entire corporate office of ITI to Delhi, triggering large-scale protests and demonstrations in Bangalore by the employees.

The official said that the relocation of a few very senior-level officers for functional will not affect the employees at all. "The Minister has always been pro-employee. The previous NDA Government had plans to wind up ITI Ltd. In fact, it was due to Mr. Maran's personal intervention that Alcatel decided to pump money into ITI's units in Uttar Pradesh. Otherwise, ITI would have been closed by now," he noted. With the revival process on in full swing at its Mankapur, Rae Bareli and Naini plants in Uttar Pradesh, several key officials of ITI travel frequently from Bangalore to Delhi and back and stay in five-star hotels. "This is a drain on ITI resources. If they are stationed in Delhi, the activities in Uttar Pradesh can be monitored easily on a daily basis," the official said.

The workers are not convinced by the Ministry's assertion. "This is an insidious way of shifting the corporate office," says Michael Fernandes, president, ITI Employees' Union.

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