Close in India ?
Writing in Hindustan Times ( 23 July 2015 )
, Timsy Jaipuria
provides following information about
Scooters India Ltd (SIL) :
* SIL employs 1000 persons
* Incurred losses from 2002 to
2012
* Given Rs 200 crore revival
package in 2013
* Expected to make loss in 2015
* Government could not find a
buyer for SIL in2011
* If SIL fails to revive ,
Government will try to divest again
All of these reminded me of the following
letter that I wrote to 7,500 employees of L&T Powai Works ( individual
copies in English and Marathi ), some 30 years back :
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
28 Feb 1986
Dear Friends :
FLOGGING A DYING HORSE
The correct idiom is
"flogging a dead horse" but
there is every possibility that the horse ( Scooters India ) is
dead by now.
This is because the enclosed article
( Dying Horse ) about SIL
is almost 18 months old.
And as of Dec. 31,
1985, we have such 93,282 dying (or dead?) horses
in our country.
These are known as " Sick
Units "
What I do not know is
whether the above mentioned figure includes
public-sector ( Govt.
owned ) sick-units or not.
Most of these are sick - in fact VERY
SICK. If you wish to know how
"sick", here are some "temperature-readings" :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Government Unit ( PSU ).......... Loss in
last 3 years ( Rs Crores )
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
1.
|
||
|
2.
|
||
|
3.
|
||
|
4.
|
Scooters India Ltd.
(SIL).............................. 50
|
|
|
5.
|
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|
|
I understand that
the Govt. is planning to wind-up
(close-down) the first 3 units and merge the
remaining 2 units with some successful public or private sector company.
From the "Dying Horse"
article, we find that neither Bajaj nor HMT
wants to even touch Scooters India !
And no wonder
A similar company in America
would perhaps employ 500 persons whereas Scooters
India has employed 3500 persons .
If you do not believe me, next time
stop and count the number of persons pretending
to dig a hole for a faulty telephone cable !
How long before some of us muster enough
courage to ask
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
H C Parekh
General Manager ( Powai )
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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It seems , since I wrote the above-listed letter , things
have not changed ! May be the " Industrial Sickness " has spread
May be we need to launch another initiative called ,
" Close in India " !
And permitting 100 % FDI in sick units could be another
" Out of Box " solution worth considering ! Nothing to lose but
something to gain
And , the beauty is , no political party will oppose
such " Privatization " !
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hemen parekh
(M) 0 - 98,67,55,08,08
23 July 2015
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