NGEF (Hubli) will be revived: CM

The New Government Electric Factory (NGEF) Hubli unit will be revived and the state government will provide budgetary allocation to the unit in the next budget to be presented in February. The assurance came from Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar at a function to celebrate the silver jubilee of NGEF on Sunday.

Shettar, who inaugurated the transformer repair centre, said the state government had released a special grant of Rs 10 crore in two installments for reviving the unit that had been incurring losses for the last few years.

Ruling out liquidating the factory here on lines of NGEF Bangalore, Shettar said, “The NGEF is one of the prestigious Public Sector Enterprises (PSE) of north Karnataka. Its products were sold in the global market in the beginning. Even when Bangalore NGEF was incurring losses, the Hubli unit remained profitable. I have been trying to safeguard this industrial unit from the day I became the leader of Opposition. A bailout package was prepared when I was the Speaker and later Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj. When I became the Chief minister, I saw that Rs 10 crore was made available to revive the units. Now it is left to the workers here to run the show efficiently and make it self-reliant,” he said.

 

Shettar said his government was committed to revive the PSEs in the state. “I have taken steps to help the North West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC), which had been incurring losses. A decision had been taken to provide tax exemption to the NWKRTC and NEKRTC at the cabinet meeting held at Gulbarga recently,” he said.

The CM claimed that many PSEs which were incurring heavy losses, started earning profits after the BJP government came to power in the state. The state government had taken steps to streamline the administration of these PSEs. But, the government could not extend help all the times. The PSEs should increase efficiency level and compete in the global market, he said.

On the occasion, Minister for Energy Shobha Karandlaje said, her department had provided Rs 2.57 crore in grants and machinery to set up the transformer at the NGEF Hubli unit. The Hescom would place orders to repair the transformers at this unit. At present, the target of repairing a minimum 250 transformers had been set. This target should be enhanced because the Hescom alone had to repair 1,600 transformers per month.

At present the Department of Energy relied on private firms to repair the transformers in the absence of a public sector unit to take up this work, she said.

She also urged the CM to reconsider the decision of liquidating the NGEF unit in Bangalore and set up a transformer production centre there.