RIL asks officials to give preference for work place
Sunday, May 1 2005 14:30 Hrs (IST) - World Time - 
Kolkata:
Top executives of Reliance Infocomm, country's largest private telecom company, have been asked whether they would like to stay with the company or move over to the group's flagship company RIL, indicating thereby that the ownership of Infocomm may change from its current Chairman Mukesh Ambani to the younger sibling Anil, as part of a settlement of the feud between them.
Reliance group's HR president V V Bhatt asked them to make their choice in a communication sent last month (April) saying, "You are undoubtedly aware of the possibility of a change of the management in Infocomm warranting the necessity to split the functions of State coordinators into Infocomm and Industries (petroleum, pipeline etc.) separately should and as and when such change happen".
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Interestingly, the top executives and many of the State coordinators have been asked to sign the "enclosed" format and send two separate sealed envelopes addressed to Bhatt's own office at Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge Centre and Anil Ambani at his office at Reliance Centre at Ballard Estates, sources said.
Responding to the call, at least four top executives including Chief Operating Officer Kamal Nanavati have desired switching to the parent company in the event of a split in the family business, RIL sources said in Kolkata.
Others, whose name are indicated by the sources to have expressed desire to switch to RIL, include Bhagwan Khurana, Director of Managment Services Division, A G Dowda, Head Reliance Engineers Association Ltd and Amit Khanna, a high ranking official in Corporate wing.
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Stating that the group respected that an individual employee should have a choice to exercise the type of work he wanted to do, Bhatt's communication said that "consequently, we have decided to leave the option to you to work exclusively for Infocomm or exlusively for Industries (petroleum, pipeline, manufacturing and other projects)."
Reminding them that no final decision had been taken, it asked the employee to maintain confidentiality and sought their response by April 22, sources said.
Inspite of controversies, Infocomm reported its first profit of Rs 51 crore last week on a turnover of Rs 5387 crore.
Sources indicated that many of the executives may take the call and decide on their future course only after a formal decision of settlement is worked out and announced notwithstanding their response to the communication sent by HR department.
PTI
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