Calcutta, May 22: The UK-based department for international development has informed the Bengal government that it would no longer support retrenchment of workers from sick public sector units which are on the restructuring table.

Pointing out that its primary function is poverty eradication, the DFID has refused to sponsor in a major way ea-rly retirement scheme for wor-kers. It would, instead, focus on “more meaningful” human resource initiatives like training and social security.

Last week, DFID (India) programme manager Debbie Menezes and senior development programme manager (Bengal) Santosh Clair met state officials and discussed their policy on the second phase of the restructure exercise.

The DFID officials will shortly submit their plan to the agency’s Delhi office, which will then be forwarded to its London headquarters.

In the first phase, the British agency had sponsored 87.5 per cent of the retirement scheme, while the government pitched in with the rest.

For the second phase, however, the department of economic affairs of the Union finance ministry has communicated the agency’s change in stand to the government.

“The department of economic affairs has informed us that the DFID will only bear 33 per cent of the ERS (early retirement scheme) component, while the state government will have to cough up the rest. The Bengal government will have to think twice before giving ERS because they will have to bear the major portion of the financial burden,” said an official with the public enterprises and industrial reconstruction department.

In the first phase, the DFID had contributed Rs 208 crore, of which over 95 per cent had gone towards financing the early retirement packages of 6,147 employees. Twenty-eight loss-making PSUs have been lined up for restructuring in the next phase.