Hyderabad, Jan 31 (IANS) Regency Ceramics plans to re-open in the next few months its factory in Yanam, which sustained massive damage in labour unrest last week, but is waiting for insurance companies to complete their assessment of the damage, a senior company official said.
According to initial estimates, the company sustained losses amounting to Rs.150 crore in the violence that claimed the lives of a senior company official and a trade union leader at the factory in Yanam, an enclave in Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district but under the administrative control of the union territory of Puducherry.
The factory was insured for Rs.450 to Rs.500 crore. All the insurance companies are expected to complete their assessment of the damage in 10 days.
“We still don’t know the extent of the damage as none of us were able to visit the factory but what we came to know is that the damage is extensive,” said N. Satyendra Prasad, executive director.
Terming the violence pre-planned and alleging that outsiders and anti-social elements were involved, company Chairman and Managing Director G.N. Naidu demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
With allegations of involvement of politicians doing the rounds, Naidu said only a comprehensive probe could bring out the facts. He also quoted local people as saying that Mumbai mafia was brought to Yannam and 3,000 rowdies were hired to carry out large-scale violence.
Though Naidu did not blame any politician, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President N. Chandrababu Naidu has said that as honorary president of the workers’ union Congress MP Harshakumar should own responsibility for the violence.
The Regency chairman said there was no labour trouble in the company for the last 27 years and it was only last year that the workers formed a union and named Harshakumar, MP from Amlapuram (Andhra Pradesh), as honorary president.
He also revealed that the company had sought Harshakumar’s intervention to sort out problems with some employees and the MP had promised to get back after the Sankranti holidays.
Expressing shock over the killing of company president (operations) K.C. Chandrasekhar, Naidu said: “We don’t know what to do. I don’t know whether we have the courage to revive the factory after all this mayhem,” he told a news conference here.
However, a senior company official later said they had strong plans to re-start the plant and indicated that it might take two to four months.
“Our first priority is to save the academic year of 5,000 students of schools and colleges which were destroyed in the attacks,” Prasad said.
Naidu claimed that he set up the plant in the backward region and was running schools and colleges as a social responsibility.
The company, which was set up in 1984, has been running in losses for the last six years due to short supply of natural gas. The promoters, who hold 60 percent equity, had infused Rs.21 crore during last six years to continue operations.
The company, which had a turnover of Rs.200 crore last year, was running at 60 percent of its production capacity of 40,000 square metres per day. The accumulated losses of the company were Rs.35 to Rs.40 crore while its outstanding debts stand at Rs.80 crore. The working capital was Rs.35 crore.
Regency had 1,200 employees in the factory but the total number of employees in all the institutions run by the company was 2,600.
