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PSUS:
TEMPLES OF DOOM
Close
Call
Incorporated:
1964; HQ: Durgapur; Product: Mining equipment
By
Sumit Mitra
The
fortunes of many PSUs in India were linked to those of the communist bloc.
The end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Eastern Bloc had
a telling effect on these companies. The Mining and Allied Machinery Corporation
Ltd (MAMC), which was set up in Durgapur, West Bengal, to manufacture
mining equipment, is also a product of the Cold War. The company was once
the conduit for a subtle technology transfer across the Iron Curtain-the
British technology that it obtained by a collaboration with Dowty Mining
of the UK was given to the former USSR in the form of exports of specialised
wrenches, winders and haulages while the Soviet (and Polish) mining drills
and other equipment it imported were reverse-engineered and exported to
the West.
But the
end of the Cold War changed all that. The West no longer needed an intermediary
for dealing with Russia or Poland. As a result there is a disquieting
silence in MAMC today. There is no manufacturing worth the name and most
of the machines are rusting due to disuse. In fact, MAMC has long ceased
to be a major supplier of mining equipment. Till 1998-99, only a hundredth
of its installed capacity of scrapper-chain conveyors, the company's product
of pride, was operational. Now the assembly line is closed.
Chairman-cum-Managing
Director P.K. Rohatagi is seldom at Durgapur. He was appointed in 1995
for two years but was neither given a fresh term nor asked to leave on
expiry of his tenure. The company has only four directors, others having
resigned, while its senior technical personnel have all left.
With a negative
net worth of Rs 1,060 crore and negligible sales of Rs 7.71 crore, MAMC
today is far from a business enterprise. It is kept alive by the desperate
will of some 1,500 ageing and idle employees to retain their sinecure.
In 1995, when the BIFR ordered its closure, the CITU-led union approached
the high court and obtained a stay order. However, in 1998, when the Government
unexpectedly offered a voluntary separation scheme (VSS), 1,949 workers
took the offer while some 2,000-odd stayed put.
Matters
came to a head when the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment announced the
decision to close down MAMC and five other PSUs under the Industrial Disputes
Act. Under this law, the closure will not have to go through the long-twined
BIFR procedure. The decision was followed by another VSS offer in October
that lured some 500 workers, thus reducing the staff from 4,217 in 1996-97
to less than 1,500.
In end-November,
yet another VSS offer was made. If employees don't take it up, they would
have to be content with only their statutory dues (Provident Fund, etc)
at the final closure of the company. The workers are in a fix, hoping
that the Government will raise the current offer of 60 months' salary.
Politicians
are cashing in on the employees' dilemma and competing among themselves
to become their "saviour". While Trinamool Congress chief Mamata
Banerjee takes credit for having delayed the closure at least till the
2001 assembly elections in West Bengal, CITU, the trade union arm of the
CPI(M), is planning a legal strategy. "MAMC has been downsized. Instead
of restructuring the company, the Centre is talking of closing it down,"
says CITU state Secretary Chittabrata Majumdar. The problem is, how does
one "restructure" a company of 1,000-odd grey-haired clerks
used to drawing salary without work?
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