KOCHI: The revival hopes of the Udyogamandal unit of the Hindustan Insecticides Ltd (HIL) have wilted with the Union government accepting the Niti Aayog recommendation to shut the unit.
Though members of the Save HIL Forum met Union Minister of State for Fertilisers and Chemicals Bhagwanth Khuba in Kochi on Thursday, seeking his intervention to revive the plant, the response was not encouraging.
“The minister clarified that the decision to shut down the Udyogamandal unit cannot be reversed. He also said the proposal to absorb the HIL employees at FACT has not been approved,” said a leader of the forum.
Given the turn of events, the employees have urged the state government to take over the plant. The state’s first Central PSU, established in 1954, had been the most profit-making unit of the HIL till 2015. It was the ban on endosulfan and the decision to shut down the DDT, BHC and dicofol plants in 2018 that landed the PSU in a crisis.
On March 20, 2022, a meeting of the Committee of Group of Officers of the department of public enterprises had directed the department of chemicals and petrochemicals to furnish a draft note for the closure of the HIL’s Udyogamandal and Bhatinda (Punjab) units and strategic disinvestment of the Rasayani unit in Maharashtra.
There are 71 regular employees and 24 contract workers at HIL who have not been provided salary from June, 2022. It has been more than a year since the HIL paid the employer’s share of the Provident Fund. The employees who retired from service during the past one year are yet to receive their gratuity and other benefits.
Around 15 employees were transferred to Mumbai two months ago and more are expected to be deployed in other units soon. Meanwhile, local residents have raised concern about the risk posed by the huge storage of hazardous chemicals at the unit which had stopped production a year ago.
“The security staff at the unit had quit on Tuesday as they were not paid salary for the past six months. If the HIL transfers the employees, there will be nobody to ensure the safety of the hazardous chemicals. The HIL should retain adequate staff at the unit to take care of the chemicals and machinery,” demanded BJP central zone secretary C G Rajagopal, who met the minister on Tuesday demanding to revive the unit.
At the same time, Pollution Control Board senior environmental engineer Vinaya K S said: “There is no risk due to storage of hazardous chemicals at HIL as they have experienced employees to take care of the stock. There is no need for a safety review as the company has not informed of the move to shut down the unit.”