Financial Assistance To Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies And Payment Of PLB To Railway Employees Approved by cabinet

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, has given ex-post facto approval for payment of Productivity Linked Bonus to railway employees for the financial year 2021-22.

Payment of PLB to eligible railway employees is made each year before the Dusshera and Puja holidays.  This year also, PLB amount equivalent to 78 days wages has been paid to about 11.27 lakh non-gazetted railway employees. The maximum amount payable per eligible railway employee is ₹17,951/- for 78 days.  The pay outs have been made to various categories, including track maintainers, drivers and guards, station masters, supervisors, technician, technician helper, controller, pointsmen, Ministerial staff  and other Group ‘C’ staff.

The financial implication of payment of 78 days PLB to railway employees has been estimated to be ₹1,832.09 crore.  The decision for payment of PLB has been taken despite adverse financial situation caused by post Covid-19 challenges.

The actual number of PLB days paid is more than the days worked out on the basis of defined formulae.  The payment of PLB acts as an incentive to motivate the railway employees for working towards improvement in the performance of the Railways.

The Cabinet also approved proposal of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas to give one time financial assistance amounting to ₹22,000 crore to three Public Sector Undertaking Oil Marketing Companies (PSU OMCs). The grant will be distributed among Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL).

The approval will help the OMCs to fulfil their commitment of providing unhindered domestic LPG  supplies and also supporting the procurement of Make in India products. Domestic LPG Cylinders are supplied at regulated prices to consumers by the public sector OMCs.

During the period from June 2020 to June 2022, the international prices of LPG increased by around 300%.  However, to insulate consumers from fluctuations in international LPG prices, the cost increase was not fully passed on to consumers of domestic LPG.  Accordingly, domestic LPG prices have raised by only 72% during this period.  This has led to significant losses for these OMCs.