The VRS, applicable to a substantial number of the 600-and-odd Burroughs Wellcome employees including those at the company's Mulund manufacturing facility in Mumbai, had closed in the first week of June.

The VRS had offered a compensation of up to a maximum of Rs 5 lakh per employee or basic-plus-dearness allowance (DA) for the remaining years of service, whichever is lower. The scheme was open to employees (including those at the Burroughs Wellcome Prabhadevi office in Mumbai) with at least 10 years of service or 40 years of age.

Assuming that all 35 employees were eligible for the Rs 5-lakh compensation package, it would translate into an outgo of Rs 1.75 crore for the company. BWIL had, in 1996, incurred VRS expenses of Rs 11.03 crore while, in 1997, this camedown substantially to Rs 83 lakh.

It is, however, unclear whether the company has already shut down its chemical unit at Mulund, possibly aided by the latest VRS, even while retaining the formulations unit.The latest round of VRS comes even as most of the employees at the Mulund manufacturing unit in Mumbai had earlier turned down an offer of a 72-month, lump-sum differential payment of approximately Rs 2 lakh per head, accompanied by a subsequent decrease in salary levels in line with that of Glaxo.

The Mulund unions' non-acceptance of the revised wage packet aimed at bringing about a parity in wage-levels in Burroughs Wellcome and Glaxo had, in effect, "delinked" this unit from the rest of the company. Unresolved wage disparities have played a significant role in delaying the legal merger of Glaxo India and BWIL, and the latest VRS, sources say, had failed to improve the situation.

Though both companies have been integrated on all key operational fronts, their substantially different wage agreementshave been a major grey area in labour integration efforts. Burroughs Wellcome workers, among other benefits, are entitled to unrestricted dearness allowances in line with the price index unlike their Glaxo counterparts.