In Jharkhand, sick PSU on poll agenda again

The first of HEC’s three plants, a school, a stadium, a hospital and a township with 14,000 houses for its equal number of staff headed by a CMD were set up under the supervision of Russian engineers across three lakh acres and dedicated to the nation by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1964.

A look at this PSU in Hatia constituency in Ranchi reveals the ‘‘development’’ made so far. The hostel where Russians lived was turned into the Jharkhand Assembly. Over 10,000 houses were either sold or leased out to the state government, others are lying empty. The company showed net losses of Rs 172 crore on sales of Rs 157.51 crore, says the 2001 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

If the report is anything to go by, HEC’s net worth has slipped into minus Rs 883.15 crore and its accumulated losses touched an all-time high of Rs 1,341.68 crore. Since optimal utilisation of assets and resources was not made, the Board for Industrial Financial Reconstruction directed HEC to close operations last year.

But the company’s 3,737-strong staff and their families who reside in Hatia as its bonafide voters continue to attend work. They constitute a votebank no party can ignore. Nor could CMD S. Biswas who is struggling to revive the company with a plan to sell its 4,887.28 acres of unutilised land. Says HEC’s PR manager S. Subramanian: ‘‘If our demand for complete autonomy is met, we can still turn around.’’

Most maintain a studied silence when BJP candidate K.K. Poddar promises to back the company’s revival plan. Congress candidate Gopal Shahdeo, too, explains why he was happy when his party incorporated in its manifesto a revival plan for the company.

‘‘Congress Jharkhand wasiyon aur bisheshtah HEC parivar ko yeh vishwas dilati hai ki ham mandir swaroop karkhane ko band nahin hone denge aur aise sucharoo rup se chalane ke liye krit sankalp hain (Congress wants to take the residents of Jharkhand, especially the family of HEC, into confidence by declaring that we are committed to running it smoothly and not let it close)’’, says the Congress manifesto. But no body claps.

‘‘We’ve been hearing these pep words from politicians for long. But nothing concrete has happened till date,’’ said Ramashish Singh, a worker.

A survey by the Jharkhand Tribal Welfare Research Institute revealed that of 8,500 persons — of tribal and Dalit families from whom the government acquired over 3,89,261 acres to set up HEC at Dhurwa and its adjoining villages in Hatia — 6,600 were yet to be compensated. The promise was made in 1960, at the time of land acquisition.

Ask Chief Minister Arjun Munda if he has any revival package for the sick HEC, he says: ‘‘If the Government of India can’t run it, we will run it as a state PSU.’’