In a bid to align costs to decline in activity levels, commercial vehicle giant Ashok Leyland has announced a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for all categories of its executives.

Chennai-headquartered Ashok Leyland, which has more than 5,000 executives on its payrolls, said that the proposed VRS was applicable to all categories of executives. The company also claimed that any employee who opts for the scheme would be given adequate compensation package.

A spokesperson for the company said, "The VRS package will be fair and would provide adequate compensation to any employee who opts for it. The proposed scheme is applicable to all categories of executives and will be valid only for a week."

"While the company maintained market share in the last quarter, volume pressures continue and we need to take some definite steps to manage the slowdown,"

Vinod K. Dasari, managing director at Ashok Leyland, said the commercial vehicle maker maintained its market share in the past quarter but continued volume pressures forced the company to take some definite steps to cope with the slowdown.

Ashok Leyland suffered a decline of around 15 per cent in truck sales in the first half of the current financial year, while medium & heavy commercial vehicle volume slipped 25 per cent to 41,509 units, despite offering huge discounts. For the July to September quarter, the company reported a loss of Rs 26 crore.