ABG Shipyard clears employee salaries until August via loan tranche

Company assures smooth payment of salary here onwards

ABG Shipyard, the company with India’s largest building yard in the private sector, has cleared the salary dues of all employees until August, after it took a recent working capital loan of Rs 650 crore.

“There are around 700 employees whose salaries have been paid until August. And, contractors, who are indirect workers of the company, have also received their payments,” chief financial officer Dhananjay Datar told Business Standard on Tuesday.

The Rs 650-crore tranche was part of a Rs 1,900-crore working capital loan of a total corporate debt restructuring for Rs 11,000 crore approved in March. Of the loan received, Rs 78 crore was spent towards salaries of all employees, direct and indirect, as well as ex-employees, said Datar. “The total amount towards salary payment of only the contractors (indirect workers) was Rs 30-35 crore,” he said. “There were 25-30 cases of full-and-final settlement of ex-employees having clear records with the company, meaning they had no loan dues.”

Going ahead, he assured, employees would get their pay without delay and there would be no backlog. “The September-October salary will also come soon and it is going to be smooth thereon.”

However, some ex-employees denied having got their dues despite a clear record with the Surat-headquartered company. “I had never taken any loan from the company. Not even a penny. There is nothing outstanding at my end and yet so far I haven’t received any intimation from the company regarding settlement of my dues,” said S C Gupta, chief executive officer of the offshore division for nearly three years.

“I know about the employees having received their salaries and so I called the (personnel division) two days ago. They are just asking me to wait and not giving me a timeline. My case is clear, too. I had never taken any loan from the company,” said an ex-employee, who'd worked with the shipbuilder for nearly two years.