: The tripartite contract between Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore, GAIL Gas, and MMTC ends on Monday plunging the future of the public sector fertilizer company in uncertainty even as production at the fertilizer plants has come to a grinding halt since April 9.
The Save FACT Action Committee, a combine of trade unions, has said the company would not be able to work even a day without financial assistance.
FACT is now straddled with lack of working capital and reserves; overdraft dues of Rs.850 crore as well as payment arrears for raw material suppliers to the tune of Rs.500 crore, said a spokesman of the Action Committee on Sunday.
The fertilizer unit has not taken advantage of the fall in natural gas price, said a statement issued by the Action Committee, which also said that the company had no money to buy raw materials such as phosphoric acid, rock phosphate, sulphur, etc., and that fertilizer production had been stopped on account of the situation.
However, these developments have taken place in the background of a market condition in which FACT could have made a profit of Rs.150 crore had it continued with production, including that of caprolactam. It is doubly disadvantageous for FACT to stop production when the market conditions are positive, the statement warned.
Writing off the interest burden over the last three years and making available an interest-free working capital loan of Rs. 550 crore would save the day for the fertilizer company, the press statement added.
FACT faces an uncertain future despite an assurance by Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers Ananth Kumar on June 20 last that the company would be given a lifeline.
