Vikrant Tyres Resolutions Put Off

The management of Vikrant Tyres Ltd (VTL) has put off two special resolutions scheduled to be passed at the company's adjourned annual general meeting in Mysore on Monday following stiff opposition from workers who were against the privatisation of the company.

The board of VTL formally closed the adjourned meeting without announcing any definite date for dealing with the two special resolutions which were withheld from being passed at the originally scheduled annual general meeting held last month.

The adjourned meeting was conducted under tight security following the assembly of a large number of workers of the Vikrant Tyres Employees Union (VTEU) who were vehemently against the two special resolutions.

 

The special resolutions had originally favoured the allotment of fresh equity shares to J K Industries, the strategic alliance partner, to enable it have a majority stake in the public sector company. The adjourned annual general meeting was over in less than 30 minutes which too witnessed noisy scenes with VTEU workers raising slogans against the board for favouring privatisation.

While other ordinary business resolutions were carried through at the annual general meeting last month, the board had decided to postpone the two special resolutions to an adjourned meeting on October 7.

The union held that the company need not be privatised as it had made profit of Rs 3.63 crore in the last financial year.

On the necessity for over Rs 100 crore to revive the cash-strapped unit to enable it to compete with private sector, the union maintained that the company needed only Rs 33 crore for modernisation.

This, they held, the state government could easily put in.

Since the company has shown profit under the present chairman and managing director K K Misra, the union said it wanted him to continue with his revival programme, instead of handing over the company to J K Industries.

Although, the financial institutions now seem to be unanimous in allotting fresh equity shares to J K Industries so as to let it have a majority stake, the board seems to be hesitating over the issue fearing workers' backlash.

The VTL board which met on Monday morning, had decided not to press for the special resolutions for some time in future. The strategy of the board appears to be to wait for an opportune time when tempers are cool over the allotment of fresh equity shares to the strategic alliance partner.

Privatisation would affect the approximately 3,000 employees of the company and their families was the refrain of the VTEU.

The workers' union held a meeting with a high-level committee on October 4 in which they again stressed their stand against the privatisation move.

Now the ball appears to be in the court of the Karnataka government which alone has to decide over the question of making J K Industries the majority share holder of the company.