Bokaro Steel Plant in Bokaro city is a well known city in India, in the state of Jharkhand. Set up in Bokaro in 1964, with the help of the Soviet collaboration, the BSL later on merged with the Steel Authority of India Limited. Formerly it was known as the Bokaro Steels Limited. From time to time, BSL gives out its own advertisement for the upcoming vacancies in different posts such as the Engineering cadre, Management cadre and other Group B and C posts.
By June 22nd, 2012, the Bokaro Steel Plant is expected to face a huge shortage of manpower and therefore it has decided to fill up about 1700 posts till 2013. These posts are spread across different levels in the Steel Plant and require to be filled up on urgency. Such a shortage has been created because of the retirement of people from time to time, which is estimated to be at the rate of 180-200 people per month. The BSL needs a targeted manpower of about 20,000 employees, which has gone down significantly in the last few years.
In order to tide over this lowering of the staff, the company has announced the recruitment of about 1700 personnel to be finished till 2013. Most of these advertisements will be for the skilled category workers which include those with ITI qualifications, diploma holders and management trainees. The SAIL board has approved for the recruitment of required numbers of employees in this financial year till 2013, so as to complete the process by 2013, which is to be initiated in the year 2012. Although these recruitments will be on the basis of merit after the advertisements are published, there will not be any type of priority for people who have been displaced by the expansion of the BSL.
Many local people, MLAs and the displaced families have been demanding employment to those who have been affected by the displacement and that too in bulk, although the company has not yet come out strongly about the decision to give employment to these people. Most of the vacancies, that have been advertised, are for skilled category and the number of vacancies has been only 1700. But, if the displaced people were to be given the jobs as means of compensation, then the total number of vacancies would be more than 8000, which BSL says is impossible for them. The higher officials in the steel plant are of the opinion that an alternative arrangement is being made, which will be able to handle the issue of unemployment for such displaced people, but there is no way in which such a large population can be given employment in Bokaro Steel Plant.
Under the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the BSL has come up with an innovative plan for the development of the surrounding region near the plant, in many of the displaced villages. The aim of this CSR initiative would be the conduct of research on the surrounding regions and come up with ideas, in collaboration with the non government organisations (NGOs) to find out suitable opportunities for the youth of these villages. By this, a number of youths can be hired for carrying out the survey by the NGOs who can also find employment in some innovative manner.
The filling up of the 1700 vacancies in the Bokaro Steel Plant is being seen as an exigency. But this recruitment will be carried out in the proper sense, by different written and interview rounds or as notified. But the issue that still is being debated in the backdrop is that of the employment to the displayed youth of the region around BSL.