Date:03/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/03/stories/2008050355921300.htm

National

HAL’s comeback appeal pays off

Ravi Sharma

BANGALORE: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s initiative in wooing back some of its officers who left for greener pastures seems to be paying off.

Speaking to The Hindu, senior officials of the public sector company said over 300 former employees responded to an advertisement inviting officers who had left to come back. Most of the applicants, if not all, were likely to be taken back. The mode of selection was being worked out.

Most of the applicants are in the 40-45 age bracket and some are even prepared to give up jobs in the lucrative Information Technology industry to have a second shot in the aerospace industry.

HAL, which now has around 8,500 officers, would like to increase the strength to 10,500 by 2012. It also needs people with experience, whom it found difficult to attract in the past. The company is promising a better working environment with sops including funding higher studies, in both India and abroad, of 75 officers every year.

Explained an official: “Most of those who have applied are coming with ample experience. It is unlikely that they are coming for the money. It is the challenge, environment and wide scope that we offer that are attracting these people back.”

The attrition rate was well within limits. Hardly 250 officers — most of them with just two-three years’ experience — left during the previous financial year.