AT A time when the government is
mulling to close down three units of the ailing PSU HMT, the HMT
Non-pensioners Association, an association seeking pension benefits
for the retired employees of Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT),
Kalamassery, has shot a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
requesting him to introduce a pension scheme for the fully...
government-owned public sector engineering company.
In the memorandum sent recently to the
prime minister, association general secretary E V Raghavan noted that
over 4,000 specially skilled workmen, engineers, administrative staff
and other workers were employed by HMT’s printing machine unit at
Kalamassery, reported The New Indian Express.
The memorandum said that HMT was always
a profit-making company but its profits were being diverted to other
loss-making units.
Employees, who retired after 20 to 35
years serving at HMT, at present got no benefits under any pension
scheme, the memorandum added.
“These employees are ineligible for
benefits under any of the statutory or non-statutory pension schemes
or social benefit schemes,” the letter said.
It further said that after retirement,
the life of those employees had become miserable and many were
destitute with no support from any quarters.
The association pointed out that the
employees of all other PSUs got pension benefits.
It also informed Modi that the company
had its own internal resources to set up a pension scheme.
The PSU unit posted profit for the
fifth successive year this year.
The HMT unit made a profit of over Rs.
5 crore during 2013-14 over a total business turnover of Rs. 64
crore. Business target set for the current financial year is Rs. 82
crore.It also surpassed the target of Rs. 72 crore set for the last
financial year.
The total business turnover during the
last year was about Rs. 74 crore.
The last financial year the HMT unit
was part of the maiden venture that joined two government
undertakings-Bharat Electronics and Naval Physical and Oceanographic
Laboratory-to manufacture directing gear for sonars in naval ships.
Fresh orders for the same gear are expected this year.
Kalamssery unit now operated with 290
employees on its rolls and 250 contract workers.
Around 200 of them will retire in three
years, which may pose a serious threat to the functioning of the
unit.
No comments:
Post a Comment