more-in The public sector Hindustan Organic Chemicals’ unit here has restarted production after a gap of nearly five months on the basis of supply of raw materials on credit by Bharat Petroleum Corporation’s Kochi refinery for a period of one month. Trade union sources said that production of phenol and acetone restarted on July 7 as a result of the arrangement with the refinery here, which was made possible after trade union leaders met Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in February in New Delhi. The Minister had promised that he would intervene to help out the HOCL unit. However, since the market condition was not favourable, production was not restarted. The market condition for phenol is favourable now and the workers are confident that the cost of the raw materials LPG and benzene could be paid back with the proceeds from the sale of the products during the month. Salaries not paid Meanwhile, the salaries of the employees have not been paid fully for a period of 23 months and the employees are hopeful that a move to sell a part of HOCL unit’s land at Ambalamugal to the refinery will materialise. The land sale, if it goes through, is expected to raise enough money for a package of settlement to ensure the long-term future of the unit. The Union Ministry of Chemicals had decided to wind up HOCL’s mother unit at Rasayani and sell over 440 acres of its land holdings to the BPCL. Fears that the Kochi unit too might be wound up had prompted the trade unions to appeal to the Union government for a merger of the unit here with the BPCL refinery. Later, the unions had also appealed to the State government to take over the unit. The HOCL unit here was established in 1987 and it was in profit till 2011-12. After this period, cheap import of products such as phenol into the country hit the unit’s profitability.

Stay updated with all the Latest Kochi headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.