Will axe fall on Hindustan Antibiotics started by Nehru?

The question is nagging over 1,000 jittery employees of the famous penicillin factory started after the death of Kasturba Gandhi

A revival plan is the silver lining in the cloud for the factory.

The BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing intentions to close down sick public sector units caused unease among employees of Hindustan Antibiotics in Pimpri. The ailing PSU looking at revival options has over a thousand employees praying that the axe would not fall on Hindustan Antibiotics, which was started as an initiative of the country’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru.

The central government has decided to close down sick government-run units. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had also hinted at the government desire to privatise sick PSUs.

The government has made up its mind to close down sick units and turn the gaze on loss-making units. Firms that have completely stopped production activity will be closed down.

Story continues below this ad

Hindustan Antibiotics (HA) employees are worried though there are indications that HA might not close down after all. The HA management and the HA Majdoor Sangh believe the axe would not fall on HA. Some positive developments recently “have given high hopes of HA being pushed on the revival path.”

One of the principal reasons, they say, is optimism expressed by Union Chemical and Fertiliser Minister Ananth Kumar at a meeting with HA representatives in Mumbai on Friday. “During our discussion, he nowhere indicated that the government was planning to close down HA. In fact, the minister spoke about reviving the PSU. He gave positive signals about HA being high on government’s revival agenda,” said Sunil Pataskar, general secretary of HA Majdoor Sangh. A few days back, the centre had released Rs 9 crore to pay three months’ salary for HA employees. “The minister also promised that he would ensure that remaining eight months’ salary would be released in the next three months,” said Pataskar.

Yet another “welcome development” was on Monday when Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), the operating agency for the restructuring plan of HA, convened a meeting of bank representatives, creditors and others for the revival plan prepared by Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI) under the Board for Industrial and Financial Restructuring (BIFR). “The IDBI plans to push for a Rs 528-crore rehabilitation package before banks and creditors and seek their approval. After approval, it will be moved forward,” Pataskar said.

In view of positive developments, Pataskar said employees hope the axe would not fall on HA. “As far as production is concerned, HA is not completely down. Our agri-unit is functioning in full capacity. Other units are down but not out. We are only looking for working capital,” he said.

Story continues below this ad

HA, which finds a mention in school textbooks as the country’s first penicillin PSU was Nehru’s dream project. It is folklore that after the death of Kasturba Gandhi (wife of Gandhiji), it was felt she could have been saved by antibiotics. Nehru had pushed for a penicillin unit in Pune, according to some HA officials.

Employees are hoping BJP’s known antipathy to all that is Nehruvian, does not become reason for HA’s fall. Their efforts to push their cause through Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, who is from Pune, did not yield results. “We hope just because the company was started by Pt Nehru, it does not become reason for its closure,” said a senior HA employee.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories