Cabinet may decide on Hindustan Cables closure this month

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The Cabinet is likely to take a call on the proposal to shut down terminally ill Hindustan Cables by offering a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) to the company's 1,500 employees within a month.
"The note related to closure of Hindustan Cables entailing details of VRS etc., has been sent and if all goes well we should have Cabinet approval within a month's time," a senior Department of Heavy Industry official told PTI.
The Heavy Industry Ministry was given the task of firming up individual proposals entailing VRS related to the central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) falling under it, including Hindustan Cables.

The Cabinet had earlier approved the closure of seven terminally sick public sector units including Hindustan Cables, which incurred a total loss of around Rs 3,139 crore over a period of time.
"We will close down Hindustan Cables after offering an attractive VRS package," Union Minister for Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises Anant Geete had said earlier.
However, reports of revival of the company had surfaced after the Defence Ministry approved its takeover by Ordnance Factory Board. The Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises was supposed to take a call on it after taking into account views of all the ministries concerned.

Hindustan Cables, set up in 1952 at Rupnarayanpur (West Bengal), has units in different states.

However, the company's units in West Bengal and Hyderabad, that produced Polythene Insulated Jelly Filled (PIJF) cables, has not been in production since January 2003, as there is no requirement of these cables in BSNL/MTNL.
Similarly, the unit at Naini, Allahabad, producing optical fibre cable, has also become obsolete due to change in the product specification.
The PSUs where closure had earlier been approved are HMT Bearings, Tungabhadra Steel Products, Hindustan Photo Films Manufacturing, HMT Watches, HMT Chinar Watches, Hindustan Cables and Spices Trading Corporation Ltd.