Employees hopeful of revival of Hindustan Photo Films

Save HPF Committee members meet Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises

For employees of the ailing Hindustan Photo Films Manufacturing Company Ltd., a meeting with Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Pon Radhakrishnan provided a ray of hope that the Centre will look afresh at their plea to revive the company.

Members of the Save HPF Committee, a forum of trade unions, who maintain that the product line of the once-premier public sector undertaking, especially X-ray films, remained relevant, met the lone representative from Tamil Nadu in the Narendra Modi government in Chennai recently. “After going through our memorandum, the Minister asked us for a report listing measures required for the revival,” committee secretary R. Moses Manoharan said.

During the meeting, the delegation apprised Mr. Radhakrishnan about the debt burden of the company. The continued preference for X-ray films for their cost-effectiveness by institutions in the public sector healthcare delivery network was also highlighted.

Declared sick in 1996

The Minister, Mr. Manoharan said, enquired about the marketing activities of the company, which was declared sick by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction in January 1996, but not closed down. He also sought to know how Hindustan Photo Films, which has two units in Tamil Nadu at Udhagamandalam and at Ambattur in Chennai, could diversify. Production at the units was stopped in May 2013.

Over the past few years, employees have been knocking on several doors, a period that saw several political party leaders giving assurances and the government discussing a revival plan, only to withdraw it later.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had earlier this year approved a proposal for providing non-plan budgetary support of Rs. 181.54 crore for a voluntary retirement scheme for the 700-odd employees.

HPF managing director Girish Kumar told The Hindu on Wednesday that he came to know of the employees meeting the Minister. On whether a proposal to revive the company was pending, he said there was none. On the VRS, he said it was one of a kind to be based on the 2007 notional pay scales, while the employees’ wages were being paid at 1987 rates. For workers of the company, which manufactured medical X-ray, industrial X-ray and graphic art films as well as processing chemicals under the INDU brand, anything other than revival was not impressive.