Kochi: Trade Unions under the Cochin Shipyard Joint Action Front have intensified their protest against the initial public offering (IPO) proposal for the expansion of the yard.
Though the shipyard and the Shipping Ministry have ruled out privatisation, they have maintained that IPO was needed to raise funds for executing the ₹1,500-crore expansion plan. The unions alleged that the profit-making public sector entity could resort to other means of mobilising funds such as bank loans, and that the IPO was ill-intentioned.
“Clearly, it is an anti-national move to sell the shares of the yard, which was set up during Indira Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister. It has made great strides over the decades and is among the top shipbuilding and repair centres in the Asian region. Its performance over the years has outshone that of even Navaratna companies. Why do they want to destroy the yard by selling it off to the private sector?” asked R. Chandrasekharan, president of the Joint Action Front.
The unions have decided to hold a convention on April 18 to formulate an action plan and will strike work on April 29, with a siege at the entry gates to the yard. The unions had been staging protests at the gates, but the yard management had coaxed them into withdrawing the agitation, promising that they would have an audience with Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari. But the meeting never took place, which has irked the unions.
“We are not going to allow the yard to be sold off,” the joint front said in a statement. Meanwhile, the yard authorities have maintained that the IPO is needed to fund its expansion, which includes construction of a larger dry-dock on the yard campus and an international ship repair facility (ISRF) on the land provided by the Cochin Port.
The IPO move, the yard management has maintained, is in line with the government’s stated policy of disinvestment. The proposal envisages issue of an IPO of 3,39,84,000 equity shares of ₹10 each amounting to an equity capital of ₹33.984 crore. It comprises fresh issue of 2,26,56,000 equity shares and sale of the Government of India’s stake in the yard worth 1,13,28,000 equity shares of ₹10 each through a public offering in the domestic market.
