Thaindian News

Kolkata, Oct 10 (IANS) Talks between tyre maker Dunlop India Limited and the West Bengal government on reopening the shut Sahaganj factory in Hooghly district failed to make any headway Monday, even as the government asked the company to withdraw its suspension of work notice.

“The factory should be immediately reopened. If they do not reopen the factory tomorrow or day after tomorrow, then we will certainly look into the matter,” Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee said after the meeting at the state secretariat, which was also attended by Labour Minister Purnendu Bose.

Officials of the Pawan Ruia-owned company put forth several conditions before the government representatives for reopening the plant, including improvement in law and order and expeditious clearance of a power project in the factory premises to reduce production cost.

Regarding the industry minister’s comments, a company spokesman said: “That is the government’s stand. We don’t want to comment on that. On our side, we want to reopen the factory by ensuring permanency of operation so that we don’t have an open-shut-open sequence.”

The company management put up suspension of work notice at the factory gate Friday night, five months after a temporary shut-down in April. About 900 workers are employed at the unit.

In the notice, the company has alleged anti-social activities and vandalism by a section of workers, “exorbitant conversion cost, hefty increase in raw material prices without corresponding increase in tyre prices, continuous losses and cash crunch” for its inability to run the factory.

“We also stressed on improvement in law and order. The government ministers have promised immediate steps, including police protection,” a company spokesman told IANS, while describing the government stand as proactive.

The spokesman claimed the two sides have agreed on the company immediately appointing an agency for ensuring viability of the factory by suggesting the perfect product mix and exact labour requirement.

“We also pitched for a fresh long-term settlement with the unions,” he said.

Company director Samir Kumar Pal, who attended the meeting, told reporters: “Our employees have been threatened. One cannot run a factory at gun point. We have lodged FIRs for that. The ministers have asked to show the copies of the FIRs, which we are going to give.”

Dunlop, which the Ruia Group acquired in 2006, has two plants — at Ambattur near Chennai, and Sahagunj. While the Ambattur plant is operational, there has been no production in Sahagunj plant for the last ten months.