Closure of Nokia is unfortunate: Pon Radhakrishnan

Union Minister of State says Govt will take steps to ensure such closures do not happen in future

Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Pon Radhakrishnan has termed Nokia's closure as "unfortunate" and said the Union Government will see to that such things will not happen in the future.

Speaking to reporters in Chennai, the Union Minister, who is also hail from Tamil Nadu where the Nokia factory is located, said that it is unfortunate on what happened in Nokia. Government is concerned about the workers and will see what it can do to support the workers.

He also said, the Centre Government will take steps, so that in future such things (closure of factory) will not happen again.

It may be noted, the workers have earlier met Radhakrishnan and Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Seetharaman, who also hails from Tamil Nadu, and asked for Centre Government's interference.

The workers have also suggested that the Government should take over the factory and run it.

But they did not get any positive response from the Centre.

Nokia's factory at Sriperumbdur, will officially suspend operations from today. The factory, could not be transferred to Microsoft which acquired Nokia's device and service business globally, since it was attached by Income Tax Department in a Rs 21,000 crore tax dispute.

The factory once employeed around 8,000 workers, 60 per cent of them are women, commenced production in 2006 and it was the most productive facility for Nokia globally.

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