The Hindu Business Line : Dunlop hopes to make PF disbursement soon

THE management of Dunlop India Ltd (DIL) expects to begin soon disbursement of provident fund to its erstwhile employees or their families with the head office union of the company allowing it to release some statutory records from Dunlop House , the former registered and head office of DIL. The registered office of the company has since been shifted to Kings Court, at 46B, Chowringhee Road.

Highlighting this at the 76th annual general meeting of the company here on Monday, Mr Pramod Balakrishnan, Executive Director of DIL, who chaired the AGM, said the company's mainstay for revival continued to be the rehabilitation scheme of the Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstrurciton (BIFR). Unless the scheme was made available, it would not be possible to resume operations from the company's two units — at Ambattur in Tamil Nadu and at Sahagunj in West Bengal.

In fact, in view of the current delay in securing the clearance of the rehabilitation scheme, the management had applied to the Appellate Authority of Industrial & Finance Reconstruction to expedite the approval of the detailed rehabilitation scheme (DRS) and sought its approval to re-allocate a portion of the proceeds of the sale of the company's property through the Assets Sales Committee (ACS) for the commencement operation at Ambattur.

He said that AIFR had not yet given its clearance, and this at a time when about Rs 31 crores from the sale of property was lying in the bank. However, Mr. Balakrishnan said the management had considered it prudent to continue to maintain a core multi-financial team on its roles so as to able to reduce the reaction time in the positioning of critical manpower once the go ahead for recommencement of operation was given.

It was pointed out that the DIL management had been able to structure an operating package with the Ambattur employees union, covering rationalisation of manpower, improvement of manufacturing norms to match the best in industry, a scale down in gross emoluments and other sacrifices / austerity measures on the part of the employees. Through this, he felt, the operation at Ambattur would be able to give a reasonable return on the money that would need to be invested into it.

Meanwhile, the West Bengal State Electricty Board (WBSEB) has been warning the DIL management that would not be able to continue supplying power to the Sahagunj operations if it was not paid for the power supplied. While appreciating the stand taken by the WBSEB, the company has pointed out that the supply of power to the Sahagunj housing estate was made through an integral connection with the plant. Hence cutting off supply of power to the plant would mean no supply to the estate, which would result in considerable hardship to about 1,400 families leaving in the quarters.

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