With the crisis-ridden Hindustan Motors, maker of the iconic Ambassador car, seeking a ?suitable time frame? to restructure its organisation, the West Bengal government on Thursday said the company is unlikely to reopen its Uttarpara plant soon.
Mamata Banerjee-led state government held a bipartite meeting with the management of the beleaguered automaker on Thursday afternoon after the company declared suspension of work at its plant in West Bengal on last Saturday.
?I don?t think the plant will reopen very shortly,? state labour minister Purnendu Bose told reporters at the Secretariat after the one-and-half-hour-long meeting.
Issuing a statement after the meet, the company also said it has requested for a ?suitable time frame? within which it could restructure the organisation and reduce its liabilities as the present operational structure is ?unviable and unsustainable? to resume operations.
Hindustan Motors? acting MD and CEO Moloy Chowdhury took part in the meet.
?They told me that the company is not going to close down the factory, but they are trying to revive it. I told them to apprise me of their plan on running the plant during our next meeting. We want to know their revival plan,? Bose said. The government will again hold talks with the company?s executives next week.
The automaker, the CK Birla Group flagship, in a statement on May 24 said that the plant had been going through tough times in the past few years and its best efforts to revive the unit have failed; given the present circumstances it had no alternative but to declare a suspension of work.
The Uttarpara plant at present employs about 2300 workers and the wages are due for close to six months.
The minister said the company management has assured him that they would make an advance wage payments to the workers by Monday.
Bose said the company has also informed him that it was currently looking for a joint venture with a Chinese automaker for revival.
Chowdhury, after the meeting, said he cannot right now comment on re-opening of the Bengal plant. ?We today apprised the minister of the entire business situation of the company with facts, figures and data. This was not a meeting to come at any result,? Chowdhury said.
Asked when the company may reopen the Uttarpara plant, he said, ?On that matter I cannot make any comment right now. We will need more discussions…?
The company, in its statement on Thursday, said,?The current situation continues to remain challenging more so as the company is left with no disposable assets or investments which can be utilised to fund cash losses incurred out of operations at the Uttarpara plant.?
