Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises seeks permission to shut down Hindustan Cables

The Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises is planning to seek cabinet permission to shut down loss-making telecom cable maker Hindustan Cables by offering voluntary retirement to its employees. This is in light of the fact that the company’s units in West Bengal and Telangana, which were supposed to produce polythene-insulated jelly-filled cables, had not been in operation since January 2003. There is no demand for these cables by state-run operators BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited. Similarly, the unit at Naini in Allahabad producing optical fibre cables (OFC) had also become obsolete due to changes in product specifications.