Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies

Vivekananda School of Law and Legal

Studies

Bharat Petroleum Corporation

ltd. and COVID-19
An analytical study

Submitted by: Mayank Mishra

Enrollment No. 11917703519
Section- III-M (Semester - 3)
Subject- Human Resource Management

Submitted To: Mr. Vivek Verma

 DECLARATION

I, Mayank Mishra, of Vivekananda School of Law and Legal Studies of

BBA LLB (Semester 3), hereby declare that the project titled “Bharat
Petroleum and COVID-19: An Analytical Study” submitted to Mr.
Vivek Verma is prepared by me.

The information submitted in this project is true in the best of my

knowledge, in instances, where references of other works have been
cited, full acknowledgment has been given.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Vivekananda

School of Law and Legal Studies for providing me with the adequate
resources and material required to complete this project.

Secondly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my teachers

Mr. Mayur Gupta (ex-teacher) and Mr. Vivek Verma, my subject
teacher who guided me throughout this project. I would also like to show
my gratitude towards my elder brother who is currently at the post of
Manager Sales (Kolkata Retail) in BPCL who also provided me with
the data and the resources for completion of this project.
Abstract
In the recent events of global pandemic of coronavirus related lockdown, the nation’s economy
had a major setback and according to economists that this pandemic has affected not only the
small businesses (MSME) but also the big private as well as Govt. supported corporations. .
Companies in order to sustain during this crisis have taken unique and different measures which
are non-complying to the existing principles of Human Resource Management. In this paper I
have discussed about those steps and measures which were implied by the corporation and at
what extent they have been successful by taking the example of Bharat Petroleum corporate ltd.

Overview
• Introduction
• Policies and General Framework
• Selection and Recruitment
• Training and Development
• Bharat Petroleum Corporate Ltd. and Covid-19

• KeyWords: Pandemic, Covid Lockdown, Economy, Downturn, Human Resource

Management, Selection and Recruitment, BPCL
Introduction

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is Indian public sector oil and Gas Company
headquartered in Mumbai, The Corporation operates two large refineries of the country located
in Kochi and Mumbai. The company is India's 2nd largest downstream oil company and is
ranked 275th on the Fortune list of the world's biggest corporations as of 2019. BPCL ranked
672 in the Forbes 2018 list.

When Oil discoveries were being made and industries expanded, John D. Rockefeller and his
business associates acquired control over numerous refineries and pipelines. With these
acquisitions under their belt, they went on to form the Standard Oil Trust – a giant in its own
right.

Observing this and to counter the growing significance of Standard Oil, three largest rivals -
Royal Dutch, Shell and Rothschild’s - came together to form a single organization called Asiatic
Petroleum to market petroleum products in South Asia.

In 1928, Asiatic Petroleum (India) joined hands with the Burmah Oil Company, an active
producer, refiner and distributor of petroleum products, particularly in Indian and Burmese
markets to form the Burmah-Shell Oil Storage and Distributing Company of India Limited.

Privatizing BPCL

In 1976, the company was nationalized under the Act on the Nationalization of Foreign Oil
companies ESSO (1974), Burma Shell (1976) and Caltex (1977). On 24 January 1976, the
Burmah Shell was taken over by the Government of India to form Bharat Refineries Limited. On
1 August 1977, it was renamed Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. It was also the first
refinery to process newly found indigenous crude Bombay High.

In 2003, the government attempted to privatize the company. However, following a petition by
the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, the Supreme Court restrained the Central government
from privatizing Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum without the approval of Parliament.
As counsel for the CPIL, Rajinder Sachar and Prashant Bhushan said that the only way to
disinvest in the companies would be to repeal or amend the Acts by which they were
nationalized in the 1970s. As a result, the government would need a majority in both houses to
push through any privatization.

Parliament enacted the Repealing and Amending Act, 2016 in May 2016 which canceled the
enactment that had nationalized the company. In 2017, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited
(BPCL) got Maharatna status, placing it in the classification of government-claimed substances
in India with the biggest market capitalization and reliably high profits status on 12 September
2017.

On 21 November 2019, the Government of India approved the privatization of Bharat Petroleum
Corporation Limited (BPCL). The government invited bids for the sale of its 52.98% stake in the
company on 7 March 2020.

Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment is a process to discover the source of man power to meet the requirement of the
staffing schedule and to employ effective measures for attracting that manpower in adequate
numbers to facilitate effective selection of an efficient working force.

There are different processes and test which are used for different type of jobs and based on the
performance and qualification of an applicant, the applicant is offered the job. 1

Recruitment Process at BPCL

The recruiting process at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. took place on three levels which are

• Managerial Level
• Clerical Level
• Labour Level

1 https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/recruitment/what-is-recruitment/3
Now when we talk about the recruitment process at lower levels, the company has no
recruitment policy for any new personnel since a very significant amount of time, so company
has basically focused on hiring new recruits for managerial level employees but after the
decision of privatizing the company, there have been no new recruits.

Next is the process of recruiting the employees and from where the company recruits their
employees. Basically BPCL recruit there employees from three places which are:

• Campus placement of good engineering colleges

• Eligible candidates of MBA colleges
• Candidates qualified GATE with required marks

Before privatization company goes to the above mentioned places in the search of proper recruits
for the company. After finding their proper recruits then comes the process of training.

Training (Learning) and development

Training is the process of improving and polishing the required Skills to an employee in order to
make him/her skilled and perfectionist in the job which he / she does. Training is purely job
focused but development is psychology and soft skills oriented.

In the field of human resource management, training and development is the field concerned
with organizational activity aimed at bettering the performance of individuals and groups in
organizational settings. It has been known by several names, including employee
development, human resource development, and learning and development.2

❖ 2 http://www.whatishumanresource.com/training-and-development
Training process at BPCL

Training process of new recruits at BPCL is focused on recognizing the skill set of the new
employees and allotting them to their right workplace. Basically the training process takes place
in two steps.3

• Classroom Session

In this training the recruits have to take classes organized by the company in order to explain
the work processes going on in every department. By these classroom sessions the
employees are made familiar with the company the workplace environment.

• Company Tour

This company tour is not a just a basic tour rather in this the new recruits are placed in
different department of different branches all over India so that the employees could
understand their work and at the end of their each visit of a particular department they have
to submit a report of their learning from that visit. This report is analyzed by the managers
and according to that report the employees are promoted to their respective departments
where they are compatible and can give their best for the company.

Covid-19 and BPCL

On 11 March 2020 World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spread of Novel
Coronavirus (COVID-19) a pandemic as multiple cases running into hundreds to thousands were
confirmed in a large number of countries. Coronavirus (COVID-19) originated in Wuhan, China
in late 2019 and has been spreading worldwide ever since.

To protect the citizens of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared nationwide lockdown
for 3 weeks on 22 March 2020 after a 14-hour voluntary public curfew followed by enforcement
of a series of regulations in the country’s COVID-19 affected regions.

3 https://www.bharatpetroleum.com/careers/hr-initiatives.aspx
The Covid-related regulations 4 included sealing off state borders, shutting down transportation
services, suspending construction activities, closure of business premises and industrial estates
among others. The lockdown led to suspension of employment generation activities as the
industries, factories and workplaces shut down or suspended operations.

Now due to the above mentioned regulations and measures taken by the government lead to huge
impact on business owners and entrepreneurs. The company owners and managers in order to
make the company sustain in this situation; first started cutting their employees salary and then
stopped giving them the salary and then most of them started laying off their employees.

In case of BPCL the effects of virus were on the both internal and external levels of management
of as when we talk about the internal management, all the clerical and paperwork were
minimized as there were no employees to do that and so the company has to shift on electronic
media and alike other companies they also have to adopt the concept of work from home.

When we talk about the external management which includes sales, purchase etc. so in that case
Company has to face huge losses as due to lockdown there was a heavy decrease of traffic on
road in cities and interstate transportation was also was at its minimal and hence the major
income source took a big hit. But when we talk about in order to decrease the cost and firing the
employees unlike other companied BPCL did not lay off any of his employees.

Conclusion
After my research I have come to the conclusion that; BPCL was a government organization
until 2019 when the BJP led govt. issued order to privatize it. After interviewing my brother I
came to know the fact that generally company does not hire lower level employees and only
hires managerial level employees which is also at hold after the decision of privatizing the
corporate has been taken. In case company is in urgent need of specialized employees they
release an advertisement and then interested candidate go through proper hiring processes. When

❖ 4 https://www.bharatpetroleum.com/about-bpcl/press-release.aspx
it comes to training the new employees the company follows traditional methods like live
classrooms and company tour etc. on the other hand seniors working in the organizations are also
kept aware of the latest updates in any aspect of the company. The last thing is the effects of
covid-19 on the company which affected the company’s resources as the transportation was
completely stopped for a few months but the company took it well as they shifted clerical work
online and the physical work was done in shits as the workload was less and personnel was
same.

Bibliography

❖ Edwin B. Flippo: Personnel Management, McGraw Hill, 1980, p.131. (17/09/2020)

❖ Dr. C.B. Gupta: Sultan Chand and Sons, 2018, p.9.3 (last visited:17//09/2020)
❖ https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/recruitment/what-is-recruitment/3
❖ http://www.whatishumanresource.com/training-and-development
❖ https://www.bharatpetroleum.com/careers/hr-initiatives.aspx
❖ https://www.bharatpetroleum.com/about-bpcl/press-release.aspx