Learning to revive a business by highlighting good conduct

The country’s first private sector copper unit has seen huge investments being made with those in leadership assuring that Rs 500 crore has been spent on environmental mitigation measures alone.  The one in control of the largest industry in this southern district is CEO P Ramnath, who is unfazed by it all. He has not thrown in the towel yet and his optimism is evident despite facing the toughest challenge.  In an hour-long interaction with DTNext, Ramnath takes us through the harrowing times when emotions ran high. 

“Preparing to wait it out,” is a careful phrase used by him, meticulously as he shares data points to make a strong case for re-starting operations and conduct business as usual. Excerpts: 

In the last five years, there were no complaints and absolutely no major showcause notices. The whole incident started off innocuously, with villagers reporting about some issue with trucks movement. We took care and assuaged them. Then, the protest escalated from March 22 onwards.  

Right now, the matter is in the courts and the law must take its course. We are also being approached by stakeholders such as villagers, fishermen and truckers saying they were misled. Nearly 1,500 trucks are lying idle and EMIs are mounting with banks too having a tough time. People must have borrowed from moneylenders also. The complete stretch of road is barren now as there is zilch activity, with no traffic. Nothing! Even the small tyre repair shops and tea stalls (5 to 10 of them opposite our materials gate) have shut shop.  About 70 per cent of our employees are from Tamil Nadu with Thoothukudi itself accounting for 50 per cent of the workforce. 

Our employees are still on the rolls and we have tried to employ as much contract employees as possible. As of now, we are committed to Thoothukudi and its people. We have not looked at a timeline (for closure) at all. We have been there for 22 years now. Apart from investing a lot, we have done the right thing as far as environmental mitigation efforts are concerned. There are numbers to prove it.

On a day-to-day basis, we don’t have a place to sit there as our administration office has been sealed. We operate from the township with our makeshift office there. We come to office daily and take part in outreach activities. When the closure was announced, within 15 minutes, the Collector came and sealed the gates. It was unfortunate as such a large plant and various maintenance activities had to be stopped midway. So many materials are there; you can’t stop it like putting off the light with a switch!

Thankfully, the smelter was under shutdown phase of maintenance by March-end. By midMay, we were supposed to have re-started as we were close to the end of the 45-day maintenance period.  But then, this entire thing unfolded. Had the maintenance not been undertaken, everything would have solidified inside. So much economic activity has come to a standstill and people from Thoothukudi have got affected.  

We are learning as we live through it. There is no issue at all, as the process suited for custom-smelter, is well-known and adopted by several companies. Ours is a tried and tested process, where the Sulphur di-oxide adheres to the most stringent emission limit (1 kg against 2 kg per ton of acid produced is the world standard and we are operating much below at 0.5 or even 0.1). 

Communicate, communicate and communicate is the lesson; may be we have not communicated properly to the stakeholders, to the media and the general public as to what we are doing. Every Saturday, for about 4-5 years now, we have an open day, half an hour explaining the process and clearing doubts. We have had school students and lawyers visting us but  perhaps our communication has not been enough. If something is wrong, it is not as if we will not set it right. We are building back our bridges with the local community as we must be there and not in isolation. We hope to get a proper hearing. Industry bodies, local associations have supported us and come forward.