Former Hindustan Motors employee commits suicide

The company declared work suspension in May

A former employee of the Hindustan Motors in Uttarpara in Hooghly district of West Bengal has committed suicide.

According to Superintendent of Police of Hooghly district Sunil Kumar Chowdhury, the employee, Tapan Ray Sharma, was around 57 years old.

“It was a case of death by hanging. He had taken voluntary retirement from Hindustan Motors about three to four months ago. We have no information whether he was suffering from depression when he decided to end his life,” Mr. Chowdhury said.

Hindustan Motors declared work suspension at its main plant at Uttarpara in May this year.

Updates on worsening condition of firm In a statement to the stock exchanges, the company said that it had shared updates about the worsening condition at the Uttarpara plant which included growing indiscipline, critical shortage of funds and lack of demand for its core product — the Ambassador car — as well as large accumulation of liabilities.

Trade unions associated with the Uttarpara unit of Hindustan Motors felt that the company should have talked to them before announcing the VRS scheme.

The package offered each employee his balance salary dues (around Rs. 45,000) plus encashment of earned and sick leave besides gratuity plus a Rs.1 lakh purse.

For an employee with 34 years of service, this worked out to around Rs. 4 lakh. Workers were angry that the amount was not linked to the number of service years left.