HC orders to wind up Firth Steel

With this development over a thousand workers, directly or indirectly involved in the production of steel used for airplanes and defence material, have been rendered jobless. The Nagpur unit, situated on a 40-acre-land is closed since the last one year as the company failed to pay outstanding electricity bills.

The company has also failed to give salaries to about 450 workers in the Nagpur unit. The company deducted provident fund, recurring deposits, LIC and credit cooperative society instalments from the workers’ salaries, but did not submit these in their respective accounts, Sinalkar said.

`Peculiarly enough, the workers offered to restart the unit at all costs. But the management showed reluctance, quoting financial crunch as the reason. Ironically, the management had stopped production although it has orders worth crores of rupees,’ he added. The Nagpur unit fell on difficult times since 1995 and it was around this time that the company first failed to give wages to some of its workers, Sinalkar said.

Similar situation prevailed at the Mumbai unit and alongwith its counterpart in Nagpur, was closed for eight months in 1982 following a strike by the Mumbai unit’s workers.