The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the closure of Hindustan Fluorocarbons (HFL), a Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) under the Department of Chemicals & Petrochemicals. HFL has only one plant/unit located at Rudraram, Sangareddy district in Telangana.
The Cabinet has sanctioned shutting down the operations of the plant/unit. It includes separating employees rendered surplus through VRS/VSS, after payment of all their outstanding salary/wages and statutory dues, except for the skeletal staff required to implement the closure of the company. Employees not opting for VRS will be retrenched as per the Industrial Disputes Act.
It has approved grant of interest free loan of Rs 77.20 crore by the government to HFL for expenditure exclusively on closure of HFL which includes implementation of VRS/VSS, payment of outstanding salary/wages and statutory dues, etc and salary/wages and administrative expenses of HFL’s skeletal staff to be retained for implementing the closure of the company.
The above interest free loan of Rs 77.20 crore is to be repaid to the government from the disposal of land and other assets of HFL after settling all closure related liabilities. If the land/assets sale proceeds are not sufficient to repay the loan amount, then the balance loan amount is to be written off.
After repayment of the loan worth Rs 77.20 crore and settlement of all other closure related liabilities of the company, surplus proceeds from disposal of land and assets will be used for repayment of HFL’s outstanding government loans of Rs 15.80 crore and interest, with freezing of interest up to 31 March 2019. Full or part of the principal loan amount and interest thereon remaining unpaid due to insufficient sale proceeds is to be written off/waived.
The appointment of NBCC (India) as land management agencies (LMA) for facilitating disposal of HFL’s land assets subject to outcome of the decision of Telangana government/TSIIC on purchasing land of HFL. The disposal of plant/machinery and movable assets will be done by HFL through e-auction by MSTC.