Mumbai: Reliance Industries has informed BSE and NSE that it is planning to introduce employee stock options schemes (ESOPs) of 2.87 crore to its eligible employees, exercisable into equal number of fully paid-up equity shares of the company.

The ESOP of RIL would benefit more than 18,000 employees and is the largest ESOP declared by any Indian oil and gas company.

According to industry sources, RIL has been planning to reward its employees with stock options for the past seven years and decided that the Options would be vest-based on the specified criteria. The vesting period would range from one to seven years from the date of the grant and the exercise period would extend up to five years from the date of vesting.

The options not vested in the specified vesting period on account of not meeting the specified criteria and the options vested but not exercised within the specified exercise period will lapse.

The shareholders have approved the issuance of 52.6 million equity shares of Rs10 each under the ESOP scheme. According to a company sources, the prices will be as per ESOP norms. The exercise price will be somewhere around Rs1,300 to 1,400 without taxes.