Truckers’ strike forces MNCs to shut units

Ambika Sharma

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Tribune News Service

Solan, July 25

With the strike initiated six days ago by the All-India Motor Transport Congress continuing, major multinational companies (MNCs) like Colgate-Palmolive, Wipro, Proctor&Gamble and Mondelez have shut their manufacturing operations in the Baddi industrial areas.

With no raw material having been received for the last six days, a majority of the industrial units had exhausted their inventory. Most of the small scale industries had either scaled down their manufacturing operations by as much as 40 per cent or were heading for a shutdown.

Sanjay Khurana, senior vice president, Baddi Barotiwala Nalagarh (BBN) Industries Association, manufacturing aluminum foils for pharmaceutical units, said his raw material inventory would be exhausted on Wednesday and no manufacturing can take place without raw material. Even the last lot of raw material dispatched on July 19 had not been received, rued Khurana.

He informed that major companies like DP Cholcolates, Mondelez, Colgate-Palmolive, Wipro, Proctor and Gamble and pharmaceutical unit United Biotech had informed the association that they had shut their manufacturing activities following non-availability of raw materials. The labour sitting idle will have to be paid the wages despite incurring losses.

A senior official of a major pharmaceutical unit, which has five plants in the BBN area, said manufacturing activities had been reduced to 40 per cent and it will be further curtailed by 10 per cent on a daily basis if the strike did not end. Since the local transport unions did not allow transportation of goods from the local godowns, they had run short of raw materials. Attempt to secure raw materials from other states by plying vehicles at night have been resisted by the local transport unions who had levied Rs 11,000 per vehicle at the entry of the industrial area.

An official of the TVS Motor Company, which had shut its plant on Tuesday, informed that a stock of 10,000 bikes was awaiting dispatch and since there was neither the raw material nor the space to stock the bikes, the plant has been closed. He said that they followed the ‘just in time system’ whereby raw material owing to their bulky nature are procured on an hourly basis and about 2,000 bikes are dispatched on a daily basis. Since the local transportation of raw material from the ancillary units was also not being permitted by the transport unions, they had shut the plant till the impasse was over.

The BBN area which houses 89 per cent of the state’s industry was facing daily loss of Rs 500 crore owing to this strike. The BBN Industries Association on Wednesday wrote to the Chief Minister requesting him to take up the issue with the union government for an early solution.

Rs 500-cr loss every day

The BBN area, which houses 89 per cent of the state’s industry, is facing losses to the tune of of Rs 500 crore every day. The BBN Industries Association on Wednesday wrote to the Chief Minister, requesting him to take up the issue with the Union Government for an early solution.