After the announcement of the finance minister on May 16, to convert Ordnance Factories into a corporation, the three recognised federations of defence civilian employees of 41 Ordnance Factories, AIDEF, INDWF & BPMS, have so far submitted 14 representations to the President of India, the prime minister, defence minister, defence secretary and secretary, defence production, demanding to withdraw the decision of the government, since it is against the interest of national security and defence preparedness. None of the representations have been positively considered by the ministry of defence.

In the meeting held with secretary (DP) on July 28, he assured that the concerns of the employees against the corporatisation of Ordnance Factories will be urgently communicated to the defence minister. However, till date the federations have not received any information about the decision of the defence minister on our concerns. In this situation the federations and the trade unions have served a strike notice to the government on August 4, in support of the following three demands to commence an indefinite strike from October 12 by more than 80,000 strong defence civilian employees. The demands are as follows:

• To withdraw the proposed move of the government to convert the departmentally-run Ordnance Factories into a corporation/ PSU, as the said move has not been supported by sufficient materials to substantiate not only the so called lack of accountability, autonomy and efficiency in Ordnance Factories, but also violating the commitments given by the government and defence ministers in the past at various forums and also in the meeting held with secretary (DP) on August 23, 2019.

• Set up an expert committee for studying the requirement/ methodology for improving the efficiency, performance, productivity, and accountability of the top management, integration of various functions, independent R&D, power for entering into TOT, etc, of Ordnance Factory Board in the government set-up itself.

• Not to proceed further for converting the OFB into a public sector entity, which will adversely affect the existing benefits/ rights which the employees of Ordnance Factories and the future entrants are eligible as central government employees/ defence civilian employees, with entitlement of subsequent benefits/ rights granted to central government employees/ defence civilian employees by government of India from time to time and continue to be paid from the defence services estimates/ consolidated fund of India.

The Federations while forwarding the strike notice have also informed the following to the government. It may please be noted that even though under the ID Act 1947, the required strike notice period is six weeks, the federations have jointly decided to give nine weeks’ notice period for the government due to the following reasons: To make good the loss happened in the defence production during the past four months due to COVID-19 lockdown in the interest of national security, to provide sufficient time for the government to consider our demands and to take a positive decision, to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic situation still prevailing in the country very seriously.

The federations also mentioned that in spite of approaching all the avenues and not getting any positive response on the issue, they are forced to go ahead with the indefinite strike action as a last resort and the responsibility of which entirely lies with department of defence production and ministry of defence. (IPA Service)