PUNE: The state government is to form a committee to probe the alleged illegal and mass-scale layoffs in the information technology (IT) sector, reports Satyanarayan Iyer . Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis confirmed to TOI that the state will form a committee, but said in an SMS that he is yet to decide its mandate. Some techies - under the aegis of Forum for IT Employees ( FITE ) - had approached Fadnavis on Saturday with a litany of complaints against their employers. They requested him to form a committee to probe this and have employee representatives on board.

“As directed by the officer on special duty (to the CM) Shrikant Bharatiya in the previous meeting, we handed over details of 25-plus impacted employees with their respective organisations' names and procedure which was followed at the time of layoff retrenchment along with demand letter to the chief mini ster,“ FITE said in a statement.

IT employees also submitted many written representations to the labour commissioner in Pune and in other cities.The assistant labour commissioner in Pune, Nikhil Walke, tried to mediate between the two sides. The process is ongoing but companies openly deny having resorted to any such practice.

In a voice recording of a Tech Mahindra employee that went viral a couple of weeks ago, an HR representative was heard threatening the employee to quit by 10am the following day or face termination.She called it a “corporate decision,“ and brushed aside the employees' reasoning. This prompted Anand Mahindra, executive chairman of the Mahindra Group, to tender a public apology via twitter, soon to be followed by Tech Ma hindra managing director and CEO, C P Gurnani.

This has, however, not stopped companies in the sector from calling people randomly to a meeting and letting go of them. The employees have contended that they were not given a fair chance or an explanation, and that the issue is not related to “non-performance“ as alleged. These employees say that they have proof of being rated highly in just the quarter gone by .

A few employees have also come together and are in the process of establishing a formal union ­ to take up such causes formally . This has, however, raised the heckles of some industry leaders like Mohandas Pai, who said that those who are making efforts to forge a union in IT industry , of trying to “create a hype and fear-mongering“.

