Poor response may delay Centaur divestment

The Ministry had announced voluntary retirement scheme for the employees of these properties in the middle of last month which has closed recently. The other properties of Hotel Corporation of India have already been divested.

A senior official in the Ministry of Disinvestment said that ‘the response to the voluntary retirement scheme announced by Hotel Corporation of India has been very lacklustre and we may have to go for another round to attract bidders’.

The Ministry is of the view that if voluntary retirement scheme is extended then more people can apply and more interest can be generated from the prospective bidders, the official added.

So far, these properties have come up for disinvestment twice but the Government has not been able to woo a single bidder mainly due to over staffing, low productivity and huge losses.

With 450 employees, Chefair Delhi has the capacity of preparing 8,000 meals per day but is making only 1,652 meals per day. On an average each employee here makes only 3.75 meals a day.

Similarly, Chefair Mumbai has the capacity of preparing 10,000 meals every day whereas the output stands at 4,250 meals per day with each employee preparing only 8 meals every day.

The salary outgo on these two is around Rs 16-17 crore per year and average loss is nearly Rs7 crore per annum.

Centaur Airport Hotel, Delhi has a staff strength of nearly 1,200 people and is also running into losses.

The voluntary retirement scheme scheme is operative only in the case of disinvestment and on completion of the transaction.

According to the scheme, employees opting for voluntary retirement scheme shall be entitled to 35’ days salary for every completed year of service for each year and the balance service left.

The voluntary retirement schemecan be availed of by all regular employees of the company who has completed a minimum of 10 years of service in the company or 40 years of age and currently on the rolls/working in these companies.