‘Centre’s regressive policies pushed HMT Kalamassery to losses’

Regressive policies followed by the Central government have also led the Kalamassery unit of Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) to losses, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) national secretary K. Chandran Pillai has said. He was inaugurating the ‘HMT Samrakshana Sadas’ here on Friday (November 7, 2025), a protest meet aimed at saving the public sector undertaking (PSU), which has reportedly been facing a severe financial crisis.

“Though Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel H.D. Kumaraswamy had, on August 19, 2024, announced that a package would be implemented to revive HMT, nothing has happened yet. The employees have not been paid their salaries for the past three months, nor is the management able to say when the payments can be made. This points to a severe crisis. Society should join hands beyond political differences and oppose the Central government’s policies that are destroying the PSUs,” Mr. Pillai said.

The HMT Samrakshana Sadas organised the protest at HMT Junction, Kalamassery, demanding implementation of the revival package announced by Mr. Kumaraswamy. The council stated that the decline in the company’s working capital was the reason for its severe financial crisis. It said the company had been making profits until the 2022-23 financial year but fell into losses due to the Centre’s flawed industrial policies and unregulated support to the private sector.

CPI(M) district secretary S. Satheesh, HMT Employees Union president K.N. Raveendranath, CITU national secretary Deepa K. Rajan, and State secretary K.N. Gopinath were among those who addressed the meet.