Telangana Finance Minister Harish Rao pitches in to ‘save’ Ordnance Factory Medak, writes to Rajnath Singh

In the letter sent on Friday, 21 April, to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the state minister also urged the Centre to direct the authorities concerned to provide the necessary inputs to strengthen the factory.

Besides urging the roll back of the “arbitrary and unilateral” decision to privatise the facility, the employees union also raised several demands, including training to sharpen their skills, upgrading the machinery, and augmenting research and development activities.

Employees demand more work

The employees also demanded the government to “ensure sufficient workload so that the productivity of Army requirements are met and self-sufficiency in ordnance is achieved”.

BMP-2 “Sarath” (Chariot of Victory), also known as BMP-II – Indian licence-produced variant of the Russian BMP-2, built at the Ordnance Factory Medak. (Vitaly V. Kuzmin/Wikimedia Commons)

Additionally, they wanted the Centre to make sure that an individual who joined the government service should retire as a government employee.

Quoting the employee’s union, the minister pointed out that the Union government took the decision to privatise Ordnance Factory Board without convincing the stakeholders and 74,000 central government employees.

The Centre’s move would jeopardise the future of “approximately 25,000 individuals” directly or indirectly, Rao wrote.

Also read: Behind KTR’s fresh crusade against Vizag steel plant privatisation

Competition among DPSUs

Mentioning the memorandum Ayudha Karmagara Telangana Udyogula Samakhya’s general secretary K Prabhu has submitted, the minister said the corporatisation has created seven Defence Public Sector Units (DPSUs).

Telangana minister T Harish Rao. (Supplied)

It has led to competition among the DPSUs, which would affect the development of new weaponry, besides “automatically defeating” the concept of Make in India.

The minister pointed out that OFM is prepared to meet any target. However, the factory does not have sufficient orders for the financial year 2023-24, Rao said.

The declining workload, the minister felt, would make the “sole ordnance factory in Telangana” a sick unit in the coming years. It would affect the livelihood of 2,500 direct employees and about 5,000 indirect beneficiaries, he wrote.

Also read: Singareni Collieries a no-show despite Telangana bravado

Ordnance Factory Medak

The OFM was founded in 1984 for the indigenous production of Infantry Combat Vehicles (ICVs). Medak’s first chariot rolled out in 1987.

Over the decades, the company has manufactured surface-to-air missile (SAM) launchers, surface-to-surface missile launchers, armoured ambulances, self-propelled howitzers, armoured cars, unmanned ground vehicles, armoured light recovery vehicles, NBC recce vehicles, mine-proof vehicles, armoured amphibious dozers, armoured radars, naval armaments, etc.

Incidentally, the Telangana minister raised the demand close on the heels of the state I-T Minister and BRS working president KT Rama Rao asking the Centre to repeal its decision to privatise the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

Despite creating much hype that the government-owned Singareni Collieries Company Ltd would bail out VSP, it did not submit its expression of interest to provide the working capital for the plant.