Sunday, January 18, 2009

Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd. Revival

Taking a dig at the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and its disinvestment initiatives, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said that the present Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s decision to revive sick public sector units (PSU) under rehabilitation schemes has been a successful endeavour so far.
Pawar along with Union minister for chemicals, fertilizers and steel Ram Vilas Paswan inaugurated a new cephalosporin plant on the Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd (HAL) premises in Pimpri in the city on Saturday.
Addressing HAL employees as the chief guest, Pawar said, “The efforts by HAL employees to revive the firm from its dying stages to a profit making venture by sacrificing their monetary benefits is an example of integrity and workman spirit.”
Pawar reminded his cabinet colleague that HAL employee unions never resorted to agitations or confrontation with the government on the issue of better wages throughout the period. Hence, the ministry of chemicals, fertilizers and steel should consider the long denied benefit of the employees and should issue directions for the complete implementation of the Justice Mohan Commission’s recommendation starting from February 1.
Paswan said, “Considering the positive facets of HAL, the ministry has decided to implement the Justice Mohan Commission’s recommendation with effect from January 17 instead of February 1 as suggested by Pawar. Besides, the ministry will direct the management to disburse a gracious bonus allowance of Rs 11,000 to all employees.”
Paswan said that the Ministry would also settle arrears pending since 1997 after taking into account the two ad-hoc payments allocated to HAL. The management has been asked to form a team to examine options to release the payments.

Monday, January 5, 2009

BIFR & EGOM take steps to revive NTC mills

December 22, 2008 (India)


Following steps, as approved by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) and Empowered Group of Ministers (EGOM), have been taken to make the company profitable:

(i) To bring down the administrative cost of NTC, 9 subsidiary-corporations of NTC have been merged with NTC Holding Company, making it a single company with a single Board of Directors, as against 10 Companies for NTC in the past.

(ii) 67 unviable mills have been closed and compensation paid to the surplus employees of these closed mills who opted for Modified Voluntary Retirement Scheme (MVRS).

(iii) By offering MVRS to the surplus employees, the number of employees in NTC has been brought down to 12234. Under this scheme, 59,179 employees have availed voluntary retirement.

(iv) 22 mills have been identified for modernization by NTC itself. Out of these, 15 mills have so far been modernized. In addition to this, modernisation of 16 mills through Joint Venture (JV) route has also been finalized.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Textiles, Shri E.V.K.S. Elangovan in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on December 22, 2008.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

DHI- Year Review

YEAR END REVIEW
Heavy Industry & Public Sector Enterprises play a pivotal role in almost all sectors of Indian economy. The Department of Heavy industry (DHI) has 34 operating Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) under its administrative control. These PSEs are engaged in manufacturing, consultancy and contracting activities. The Department is also entrusted with the development & growth of Automotive Sector and Heavy Electrical/Heavy Engineering Sectors in the country. One PSE (Bharat Wagon Engineering Co. Ltd.) has since been transferred to M/o Railways and one more PSE (Praga Tools Ltd.) has since been merged with HMT(MT) Ltd., thus leaving the Department with 32 PSEs. Out of 32 PSEs,16 are profit making and remaining 16 are incurring loss. However, on an aggregate basis PSEs of DHI have shown a profit before tax of Rs.2783 crore in 2007-08.
Performance of the PSEs in DHI
The performance of PSEs under DHI during the last 5 years has been as under:-
(Rs. in crores)

2003-04
2004-05
2005-06
2006-07
2007-08
Production
12157
14137
19002
24067
27285
Profit before tax
-854
-455
1759
2332
2783
Restructuring of PSEs as per National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP)
In view of the policy in respect of Public Sector companies contained in the National Common Minimum Programme, the profit making PSEs are being strengthened by providing greater autonomy and the loss making PSEs are being considered for revival. Accordingly, a fresh look to identify companies under the Department which can be restructured and revived has been undertaken in consultation with Advisers/PSEs. So far, revival/restructuring packages for 26 PSEs out of 27 of DHI have been submitted to the Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises (BRPSE). One more case (Burn Standard Company Ltd.) is yet to be referred to them. 13 PSEs where revival/restructuring has been approved by the Government are -
Hindustan Salts Limited (HSL); Bridge & Roof Company Limited (B&R); BBJ Construction Company Limited (BBJ); Praga Tools Limited (PTL); HMT (Bearings) Ltd, Bharat Pumps and Compressors Ltd. (BPCL); Braithwaite and Company Ltd. (BCL); Cement Corporation of India Ltd. (CCI); HMT (MT) Ltd.Andrew Yule & Company Ltd.. (AYCL); Bharat Heavy Plates & Vessels Ltd. (BHPV) - Taken over by BHEL; Heavy Engineering Corporation Ltd. (HEC) and Bharat Wagon & Engineering Ltd. (BWEL) – Transferred to Ministry of Railways.
In case of two PSEs, namely Bharat Ophthalmic Glass Ltd. (BOGL) and Bharat Yantra Nigam Ltd. (BYNL), closure has been approved by the Government.
Eight out of these 13 PSEs where revival plans have been sanctioned, have registered net profit (totaling to Rs.88.58 cr.) in 2007-08.
Capital Goods Sector
Capital goods sector has been consistently growing at double digit growth for the last few years. However in the current financial year (2008-09) during April-October 2008 this sector has shown decline in growth to 9.2% against 20.3% in the same period last year. This is attributed to the general slowdown in the economy.
Automotive Sector
One of the major industrial Sectors in India is the automotive Sector. Subsequent to the liberalization, the automobile sector has been aptly described as the sunrise sector of the Indian economy as this sector has witnessed tremendous growth. This sector contributes 5% to the national GDP and employs up to 11 million people.
The Indian automobile vehicle industry which has been growing at approximately 12-15% per annum (except 2007-08, which witnessed a de-growth of (-) 4% in sales) is witnessing a slump presently. The overall domestic sales of vehicles in October, 2008 and November, 2008 have declined by 14% and 18% respectively over Corresponding Period Last Year (CPLY). In November, 2008 all the segments of the automobile vehicle industry i.e the passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, two wheelers and three wheelers have shown decline in sales of (-) 24%, (-) 50%, (-) 15% and (-)23% respectively over CPLY.
The details of domestic sales of the various segments of automobile during the period April, 2008 to November, 2008 is as under.
Sl. No. Segment Sales (April-Nov., 2008)

1 Passenger vehicles 1,004,885
2 Commercial vehicles 270,220
3 Three wheelers 241,123
4 Two wheelers 5,109,760
Total 6,625,988
NATRIP
The Government is striving to introduce superior safety, emission and performance standards in automotive sector. To achieve this objective the National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRIP) continued its efforts for creating state-of-the-art testing and R&D infrastructure in the country. This project was approved by Govt. at a total cost of Rs.1718 cr. with seven different locations having following facilities.
Manesar
Homologation Labs / Tracks & Center of Excellence for NVH & Components
Chennai
Homologation Labs / Tracks & Center of Excellence for EMC, Passive Safety & Infotronics
Pune
Homologation Labs / Tracks & Center of Excellence for Power-train, Materials & Fatigue Testing
Indore
Test Tracks for Automotive Testing, Vehicle Dynamics Lab
VRDE
Ahmednagar
EMC Lab, ABS Test Track
Silchar
Hill Driving Training Institute, I/M Model Centre, Mechanics Training Institute
Rae Bareilly
Tractor & Off-Road Vehicle Testing Centre, Accident Data Analysis Centre
In the current year (2008-09) there is a budget provision of Rs.125 cr. out of which an amount of Rs.90 cr. has already been released.
NATRIP has made substantial and defining progress during the last one year in implementation. With the completion of the detailed engineering phase and tender documentation, NATRIP is well on its way to complete the phase –I of setting up infrastructure and capability for Testing and Validation to meet emerging requirements in line with National Automotive Safety and Emission roadmap