Trustees reject Chennai austerity programme

However, the move has been rejected by trustees, who believe it is targeted mainly at ‘lower level’ workers. Instead, the trustees have asked management to put forward a modified proposal aimed at reducing overall expenditure at the port by 20%.

For the current financial year, Chennai is expected to post a loss of around $20m, mostly down to the stoppage of coal and iron ore handling over the past two years. The loss is regarded as exceptionally high, given that the port has received a dividend of $3.2m from Ennore Port Ltd, where it is a major equity shareholder. Increasing its stake in Ennore forms part of the port’s financial revamp, since a higher shareholding could generate additional dividends.

Savings will mostly come from changing office hours, stopping overtime and significantly reducing security.

Salaries, which corresponded to half of total expenditure in 2007-2008, but have since risen to 65% of the total, have also been targeted. However, trustees representing the workers argued that financial projections put forward by management in recent years have been too bleak, deliberately so that an austerity programme could be justified.