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HPL plans capacity expansion

KOLKATA: Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd (HPL) has created direct and indirect employment to the tune of 1.41 lakh persons through itself as well as its downstream units.

The company, in which the State Government holds a share along with NRI, Purnendu Chatterjee, with the Tatas and Indian Oil Corporation holding a minority share, is West Bengal’s largest manufacturing facility. It is the second largest player in its segment after Reliance Industries.

A dream child of the then West Bengal chief minister, Jyoti Basu, the project came to the State after years of dillydallying by the Centre.

Company sources said that HPL, which was commissioned in April 2001, had so far invested Rs. 5,200 crore, creating employment of 2,500 people.

Another round of capacity expansion and product augmentation is now being planned.

A petrochemical industry consists of a mother unit and a large number of downstream units, usually developed in proximity to the mother unit. The mother unit is normally capital-intensive, requiring a highly-skilled and lesser manpower.

On the other hand, downstream units require lower investment and are labour-intensive.

In the downstream units, which are dispersed all over the State with some in Orissa and Jharkhand too, so far 1.39 lakh persons have got employment including direct employment of nearly 50,000 people.

Sources said that HPL was promoting the cluster concept for enhancing the competitiveness of small scale downstream units. Under this concept, a product cluster is concentrated in a certain area.

There is a mosquito net cluster at Midnapore, where 36 looms are operating providing employment to 200 people. Once fully developed (by 2011-12), the employment figure is likely to increase to 1,500. A plastic cluster has come up in Howrah, while similar ones are set to come up in Dabgram, Raiganj and Coochbehar in North Bengal.

However, it is not only the processing units which create jobs, but also associated activities such as transportation, logistics, servicing and machine manufacturing, besides recycling create jobs and with 42 new plants in the pipeline, the total employment figure is set to increase to 1.7 lakh by December 2008.

The shareholding structure of HPL has now undergone change. Of the Rs. 1,831 crore share capital, the West Bengal Government holds 51.7 per cent followed by TCG with 37.6 per cent.

The Tatas have reduced their holding from 14 per cent to 2.45 per cent (selling to the State Government) and IOC now holds 8.2 per cent. HPL closed 2006-07 with net sales of Rs. 6,959 crore and a net profit of Rs. 586 crore.

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