The Pioneer Not For Sale, Says L M Thapar

The Thapars have no intention of hawking The Pioneer Ltd, the company which runs the Delhi and Lucknow editions of the newspaper.

The Thapars have given the management of the company two years to put its house in order and at least reduce the companys losses, if not make profits.

Setting aside all speculation of a sell-off, chairman L M Thapar told Business Standard: We have no intention of selling the newspaper. We have given the management two years to reduce the losses and we dont mind taking a small loss in the project.

Thapar said the newspaper was looking up and the circulation of the Sunday edition had gone up to 35,000 copies.

 

The firm is also shedding flab and the commercial and administrative staff has been pruned by at least 25 per cent.

The Pioneer has laid off some 400 employees, mostly in Lucknow, as it was felt that the company could not afford the earlier size of its workforce.

Most of the employees who have been asked to leave are spillover from Swatantra Bharat, the Hindi daily, which the Thapars sold soon after acquiring it.

Thapar, however, agreed that the decision of the company to launch the Mumbai edition of the newspaper was a mistake.

The company last month closed down the Mumbai edition. The Mumbai bureau is still the largest office maintained by the newspaper outside Lucknow and Delhi.

On a turnover of Rs 18.86 crore in 1995-96, The Pioneer Ltd had registered losses to the tune of Rs 42.69 crore.

The Pioneer was first published from Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh and, in a dramatic shift of base, shifted overnight to Lucknow.

During its existence, the newspaper has had some illustrious persons working and writing for it. Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once worked as its war correspondent. Rudyard Kipling also spent some years with the paper in Lucknow.