Dunlop may not get Rs 100cr WBIDC loan

The stalemate over reopening of Dunlop intensified further on Tuesday. The company is not likely to get a loan of Rs 100 crore, which it has asked for, from the West Bengal Industrial Development Corp (WBIDC) to resume production at its Sahaganj factory, according to sources at the Writers’ Buildings.

“No state government provides for working capital to any factory. Simply, if you did not get it from the banks you can not rush to the state government. If we give the money to Dunlop, other campanies that are facing financial crunch will come to us. We don’t want to create that kind of a situation,” sources said.

State labour minister Mrinal Banerjee on Tuesday tried to organise a tripartite meeting between the management, the unions and the state government. But that could not be materialised as Dunlop chairman Pawan Ruia took an unflinching stand.

“We told Ruia to modify the draft that he gave us mentioning that there was a ‘suspension of production’ at Dunlop. He refused to do that. And so the meeting could not take place,” Banerjee said.

According to labour department officials, the government can intervene in cases like lock-out, lay-off, suspension of work and retrenchment of work to name a few. But since Ruia stuck to the phrase ‘suspension of production’, the government washed its hands off Dunlop.

The officials said Ruia also refused to budge from his demand that unions sign the agreement accepting Rs 2000 as subsistence allowance per month for each of the workers.

The Dunlop CMD on Tuesday met Subesh Das, principal secretary to the chief minister, and gave him a letter requesting for the loan of Rs 100 crore and for sales tax exemption. “We have given the letter to the CM’s secretary. I have aleady said it’s owing to lack of working capital that we had to take the decision,” Ruia told reporters after the meeting.

In the morning, representatives of two unions owing allegiance to the CITU and the INTUC met Banerjee and demanded that the government bring the Dunlop issue on the negotiating table. “Ruia has lost all his credibility to the workers. If he can not mobilise funds to the tune of Rs 70 crore, which is necessary for running the factory, why did he take over the company,” Pramathesh Sen, INTUC state general secretary, said.

For the whole day, the union leaders waited at the Writers’ Buildings for a tripartite meeting, which ultimately did not take place.