BENGALURU: The number of women employees on the payrolls of Central Public Sector Units (CPSUs) has shrunk by 20% in two years, at more than twice the rate of reduction in overall staff strength, further reducing the percentage of women in such firms.

As per the latest survey by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), released Monday (Feb 10), the number of women on the payrolls of these firms was 87,667 in 2019, compared to 1.15 lakh in 2017. It stood at 96,605 in 2018.

This continuing decline in women employees — the overall staff strength has also been declining — has reduced the percentage of women staff at PSUs to 8.5% compared to 10.2% in 2017, which had declined to 8.9% in 2018.

Nitin Aggarwal, joint director (survey), DPE, told TOI: “The numbers in the survey show the situation on ground and reflect a trend, but no comment can be made on reasons for why the decline among women is more until it has been studied.”

Comparatively, the total number of employees on PSU payrolls collectively stood at 10.3 lakh in 2019, a dip from 10.9 lakh in 2018 and 11.3 lakh in 2017. The decline in 2019 compared to 2017 is just 8.7% compared to the 20% decline in women staff.

KKN Kutty, president, Confederation of Central Government Employees, said: “The overall reduction is because the government doesn’t want to fill up vacancies, and so far as the higher rate of decline among women employees, it is most likely because whatever little recruitment has happened has been done only on the manufacturing side, which does not attract too many women.”

Another employees’ leader said that the government’s push for outsourcing which has increased the number of contract workers is the reason for both categories.

The largest decline in staff strength — both overall and among women — has come in the category of workers. If the overall staff strength in this category dipped to 6.5 lakh in 2019 from 7.6 in 2017, the numbers for women in this category stood at 53,921 and 76,299, respectively.

The number of staff (overall) in the executive category increased to 2.69 lakh in 2019 compared to 2.64 lakh in 2017. It was 2.65 lakh in 2018. The number for women employees in this category stood at 27,026, 28,631 and 25,931, respectively.

The overall strength in the supervisors’ category stood at 1.06 lakh (6,720 women) in 2019 compared to 1.04 lakh (10,308 women) in 2017.

Kaushik Mukherjee, former Karnataka chief secretary, who also served at the Centre, had explained to TOI earlier that there has, for long, been redundant workforce in many PSUs. He had said that the reduction in the staff strength is a reflection of the government's efforts to streamline the workforce.

Kutty, however, argues that it is very difficult to create a post in the government and public sector. It has to get the seal of approval from many agencies — department of expenditure; personnel, staff inspection units, finance ministry and the cabinet — and therefore, this not a question of reducing redundancies as much as the government unwilling to, or being unable to fill-up vacancies, he says.

CITU all-India secretary, Meenakshi Sundram says: “There has been a gradual but steady increase in the government’s exploitation of cheap labour by moving towards contract employees. The logic behind this is because they want to reduce the variable cost as such labour don’t get all the benefits, but you will hear them say that there are a lot of redundant posts.”

