Dunlop India Limited
- Dunlop India Ltd., incorporated as a Public Limited Company (at present, public share holding at 62 %) in 1929, has two plants: one at Sahaganj, West Bengal (employees about 2700 and total area 228.57 acre), and the other at Ambattur, Tamilnadu (employees about 1800), at the time of its closure in February 1998. Its original products included wide range of automobile tyres and tubes, including Aerotyres for Defence. While Ambattur works specialized in Truck tyres, the Sahaganj (WB) plant specialized on Earthmover tyres, having monopoly in Aerotyres and tubes in the country.
- The operation of the company was closed on 07.02.1998. M/s. Ruia Group took over the company by acquiring major share capital from the erstwhile promoter M/s. Jumbo Group and re-opened the company on 01.11.2006.Sahaganj's production never started commercially since take-over by Ruiya group and its utilization of production capacity remained below 20% throughout short periods of operation by new management since 2009. The unit is without any operation since October 2011 upon declaration of 'suspension of work', without obtaining any permission of the state government.
- Thereafter, the State Government sanctioned Sales Tax Loan, waived electricity duty and accorded 'Relief Undertaking' status to the company from time to time spanning over 2009 to 2015 in consideration of the revival proposal containing settlement of dues of employees, Government etc and plan for reopening of the Sahaganj unit of the company.
- But the management failed to settle the dues of the employees, dues to the State Govt. and its agencies amounting about 77.37 Crore and the statutory dues.
- By an order dated 26th March 2012, the Hon'ble Company Court in the High Court at Calcutta directed for winding up of the company, which was upheld by the Division Bench of the High Court at Calcutta by order dtd.02.05.2013.
- Special leave petitions arising out of the order dtd.02.05.2013 passed by the Division Bench was subsequently dismissed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in its Order dated 29.07.2016.
- On the basis of representation received from the employees, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce visited Dunlop in the first week of January 2015.
- As the Ruiya management failed to implement any revival package for Sahaganj Unit and failed to settle the dues of the employees, the statutory dues and/or dues to the State Government and its agencies, the State Government passed the Dunlop India Ltd. (Acquisition& Transfer of Undertaking) Bill, 2016 in the Legislative Assembly to revive the company to ensure manufacture, production and distribution of automobile tyres and tubes including aero tyres which are essential to the needs of the nation. The Governor of West Bengal forwarded the Bill to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India by the Governor's Secretariat in March, 2016 for assent of His Excellency, the President of India.
- The Official Liquidator took possession of the Sahaganj factory of the company on 16.05.2017.
The State Government has also made interventions in the case of closed units of M/s Jessop & Co. Limited (JCL) and M/s Dunlop India Ltd. The highlights are :
- Government of West Bengal gives a special ex-gratia (@ Rs.10,000/- per month per employee) and finances ESI contribution (@ Rs.325/- per month per employee) from February 2016 onwards. Further details are :
- In view of the decision of the Government of West Bengal to grant a special ex-gratia @ Rs.10,000/- per month per employee and fund ESI contribution @ Rs. 325/- per month per employee of M/s Jessop & Co. Limited and M/s Dunlop India Limited, through DM, North 24 Parganas & Hooghly respectively, the Department made the requisite payments efficiently. During FY 2021-22 total amount of Rs. 46571950/- was sanctioned in favour of Jessop & Co. and Dunlop India Ltd. (Rs. 32850025/- for Jessop & Co. and Rs. 13721925/- for Dunlop India Ltd.)
