Ordnance privatisation: Employees on warpath

Defence employees attached to ordnance factories are in fear that the Union government is taking steps to privatise the ordnance factories for not being commercially viable.

The 41 ordnance factories in the country are governed by Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). The prime duty of the ordnance factories is to manufacture weapons for defence forces in the country and it is one of the oldest departments in the country.

There are more than 90,000 employees directly working in 41 ordnance factories and they are recruited directly by the Union government. But, now there is a fear among the employees that government is trying to corporatise and then privatise the ordinance factories. Various protests have been conducted by the employees demanding the Centre to stop privatisation of ordnance factories.

An official working in Tiruchy Ordnance Factory, on request of anonymity, told DT Next, “The Secretary of Defence Production was called by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in the first week of July and was asked to propose for Corporatisation of OFB. After corporatisation, government will go for privatisation.”

The official also said that there are more than 1 lakh acres of land available with OFB across the country and large corporates are eyeing on the property. Once privatised the land can be brought under their control, said the official.

The defence trade unions have also taken up the same demand against corporatisation of ordnance factories. R Srinivasan, General Secretary, Indian National Defence Workers Federation, said that ordnance factories were setup with the aim to manufacture defence equipment and their work is based on demands of Indian Army.

“The ordnance factories are not profit making units and work based on the demands, but now Army has started buying equipment from other sources and so ordnance factories are looked down upon by the Centre,” said Srinivasan.

He also said that OFB is now classified as department undertaking unit and if it is privatised it will be public sector undertaking where government will not have any responsibility on the units. Government went for corporatisation of BSNL in 2000 and since then it has lost the race. Similarly, OFB too will become irrelevant and they will be asked to look for their own buyers if corporatisation is carried out, said Srinivasan.

Condemning the corporatisation all the defence trade unions have planned to protest in Delhi on August 20 and to stop one month of production from August 21, added Srinivasan.