THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government on Monday decided to conduct a study on the functioning of Hindustan Newsprint Ltd which the Centre has decided to privatise. The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The report will be submitted within a week. Industry department has been entrusted with the study. HNL managing director R Gopala Rao told the meeting that the company was running in profit till 2009. It went into loss after the import duty was reduced. At the moment the annual loss is of Rs 40 crore while accumulated loss is Rs 83 crore.
The production cost has come down since last month following the coming into effect of GST and through use of information technology. The state government has given 700 acres to the HNL company and the Centre decision is to sell off the land as well. The meeting was attended by industry minister A.C. Moitheen, C.K. Asha MLA, CITU state president Anathalavattom Anandan, additional chief secretary (industry) Paul Antony, additional chief secretary (planning) V.S. Senthil Located on a 700 acre land in Velloor in Kottayam district, HNL is a subsidiary of Kolkata-based Hindustan Paper Corporation Limited, which was declared a sick unit by the Centre earlier. The Assembly had in March passed an unanimous resolution against the Centre’s move to disinvest the public sector undertaking.
