New Delhi, March 7 :     The government has finalised a golden handshake scheme covering all public sector undertakings (PSUs). The scheme will soon allow profit-making PSUs to sack surplus workforce by offering an attractive termination package under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS). These PSUs will be allowed to offer VRS with a maximum of 75 days' salary for each completed year of service. But the PSUs will get no budgetary support from the government and would have to fund the VRS package through their own resources. The proposal, now being considered by Manohar Joshi, minister for department of public enterprises and heavy industries, will be placed before the Cabinet soon. The scheme will enable profit-making PSUs, like the Oil & Natural Gas Corporation, National Thermal Power Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd and the Gas Authority of India Ltd, to offer golden handshakes. Several sick PSUs will also be allowed to extend VRS. For employees of these companies, 45 days' salary would be offered for each completed year of service. So far this package was open to only those 10 undertakings identified for closure by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) under the department of heavy industries. The scheme will now be open to all loss-making PSUs which the government feels are not viable. A one-time closure package would be given to these. Many of the sick PSUs are in Calcutta, where seven companies will be closed down. The Centre took the decision in October after a review by an expert panel set up at the behest of railway minister Mamata Banerjee. The companies facing shut-down are the Mining and Allied Machinery Corporation, National Bicycle Corporation of India, Weighbird India Limited, Tannery and Footwear Corporation of India Limited, Rehabilitation Industries Corporation, the Tangra unit of the Tyre Corporation of India and Bharat Process & Mechanical Engineering Limited. However, the panel felt two units - Bharat Ophthalmic Glass Limited and National Instruments Limited - could be nursed back to health. The government's VRS proposal is part of the overall effort to streamline PSU functioning and stress industrial revival. The 'viable' PSUs, making marginal profits or losses, can offer a VRS package based on the Gujarat Pattern.