'Peanuts-drawing' workers of RIL’s Only Vimal on strike

The country's most cash-rich group, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), promoted by Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani, is facing labour unrest at Vimal textile unit at Naroda, also known as ‘Only Vimal’.

On Thursday, as many as 7,500 workers decided to go on indefinite strike, till company hikes their wages and salaries by at least 60%.

The company with market capital of Rs2.71 lakh crore, had cash and cash-equivalents of Rs42,400 crore by March 2011. It is likely to rise to more than Rs1 lakh crore by March 2012. Despite huge cash reserves, workers at its textile unit in Ahmedabad, claim that they are being exploited. President of the Reliance Employees Union at RIL's textile unit in GIDC Naroda, Hasmukh R Patel said, “We are drawing peanuts. It is impossible to survive at the salary of Rs6,000. The hikes were scheduled for January 2011, now it has been a year, still there are no news of increments.