Union Government to the Rescue of HOCL Unit.

If all goes as planned by the authorities concerned, the unit of Hindustan Organic Chemicals Limited (HOCL) at Ambalamugal, the largest manufacturers of organic chemicals in India, will resume full-fledged functioning within a month.

The unit stopped functioning for the last couple of months owing to severe financial crisis.

The officials with the company expressed the hope that things would return to normal after the delegation comprising higher officials of the public sector company, Union Minister K V Thomas and K P Dhanapalan MP met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Defence Minister A K Antony and Union Minister Srikant Kumar Jena in New Delhi.  They said the Centre has agreed to offer financial aid of `150 crore via bond to rescue the unit.

“We expect to avail ourselves of the financial aid within a month. We hope to resume functioning of the unit within a month,” they said. They also said that the Centre had agreed to release of the 60-crore HOCL revival package.

“The package was announced several years ago but was stuck in red tapism. Now, the Centre has agreed to release the fund immediately.

This will help us to buy the raw materials and clear the debts,” they said.

 They also clarified that one of the main threats that led to the crisis has been resolved. “Srikant Kumar Jena has agreed to our request to re-introduce the anti-dumping on the import of chemicals. Also, importing of the chemicals will be encouraged only after selling the chemicals produced by the company,” they said.  “The unit has the capacity to produce 40,000 metric tons of phenol.

The re-introduction of the anti dumping duty will restrict the overflow of the chemicals from other countries and HOCL will be able to sell the high quality domestic chemicals in the country. This will help the company wriggle out of the current financial crisis,” they said.

Source : newindianexpress.com