: Save Binani Zinc Forum, the combine of trade unions at Binani Zinc Ltd., will approach the State government seeking its intervention to prevent the closure of the unit at Edayar as proposed by the company management.
Convenor of the Forum Chandran Pillai appealed to the government not to allow the closure of the unit and described the move by the company management to close down the unit as unilateral.
Not unilateral
However, Executive Vice-President of the company Roshan K. Menon said that the trade unions would be heard and that there was nothing unilateral about the management decision.
He said that the management had approached the State Government for permission for closure of the unit as stipulated by the Industrial Disputes Act.
The company’s financial crisis has continued for a year now and the management took the decision in order to be in a position to honour its commitments, he said.
Despite the financial crisis, the employees, numbering around 350, have been paid their wages and benefits, he added.
Binani Zinc, commissioned in 1967, manufactures special high grade electrolytic zinc. The unit capacity is 38,000 tonnes per year as per information from the company website.
A senior Industries Department official told The Hindu that the government had no direct role and would wait for the rehabilitation package from the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction.
As to whether the government would take a lead in a possible takeover of the unit, the Industries department official said that it was a complicated issue with financiers of the company in the picture and the company’s poor financial position.
