FACT to restart all its plants

The management of Fertilisers And Chemicals Travancore Limited (FACT) has decided to restart all the plants including caprolactam and ammonium sulphate from March 15, 2008. This was informed to the trade unions and the officers' forum at a meeting held on Monday.

With the expected release of the interim grant of Rs 200 crore by the ministry by mid March, the working capital position will also ease to facilitate continuous operations. Steps are being taken to collect all the dues to the company, including those from the government towards subsidy, a company press release stated.

Instructions have already been given to the human resources department to ensure that all recruitments for filling up backlog vacancies of SC/ST and contract appointments for technicians etc, for which action has been initiated, are completed in time to ensure that the new employees are in position by the first week of March.

Along with this, all activities required for re-deployment and re-arrangement of staff will be carried out to ensure that the available manpower and casual labourers are utilised to the maximum extent and there is no loss of production due to manpower shortage in critical areas.

Meetings will be held with the trade unions in each division by the general manager (human resources) along with the division head to review the arrangements and to ensure that essential areas are adequately manned.

The marketing division has been alerted to ensure that sale of caprolactam is tied up with the buyers and the March production is sold out in that month itself. As regards factamfos and ammonium sulphate, the sales from new production will commence in April 2008.

FACT is also planning to deal in imported fertilisers in a big way during the year with a target of 2-2.5 lakh tonne. Two shipments of urea are expected during April-May 2008. Necessary follow up with the ministry and procurement agencies such as MMTC will be done by the marketing department to ensure that the targets are strictly adhered to and the sales are planned and executed as scheduled.

As regards the JV projects planned with RCF for gypsum-based rapid wall panels and for joint ventures, efforts are being made to get formal approval from the government by March 31. Along with this, other projects such as bottled drinking water and skills development academy will also be geared up.

Proposal for a container freight station and maintenance etc, to be established at Udyogamandal alongside the ICTT road, will be put up to the board in its next meeting for seeking in-principle approval. The company has set an ambitious target of 50,000 tonne per month for gypsum sales. Along with bulk gypsum sales, bagged gypsum sales is also to be started.

FACT is planning to lay the foundation stone for the FACT-RCF joint venture for gypsum building products by the end of March at a public function, which will herald the entry of FACT in a big way in the new business area. A demonstration building using rapid wall panels is being put up at Udyogamandal.