Palakkad: On August 23, Chandrayaan-3 successfully soft-landed on the moon. And on September 2, two days before the Chandrayaan lander and rover were put in sleep mode, India's first solar observatory, Aditya-L1, began its flight towards the sun.
The two giant leaps soaked India in festival mood earlier than usual, long before Navaratri, Durga Puja and Diwali. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, quite fittingly, called the day Chandrayaan-3 soft-landed on the moon as the start of India's long annual festival season.
But for the nearly 300 employees of Government of India's Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) Limited at Kanjikode in Palakkad, who had played a crucial part in the success of these two missions, it was hard to join in the cheer. It has been three months since they received their salaries.
The last time they received their pay cheques was in July, and this was for the month of May.
The joy of Onam, too, had bypassed them. Right after the success of Chandrayaan-3, the management in an urgent video-conferencing with the employees of Palakkad facility had promised their salary dues a day before the Onam festival. It was not honoured.
Last month, four technical engineers of the 60-member core team formed exclusively for the Chandrayaan-3 Mission put in their papers. They had this to tell the management: "We are okay with the salary getting delayed. But if there is no salary at all, how can we survive?".
They reportedly joined private companies that take sub-contracts from ISRO.
The employees have been on agitation mode for quite some time. "We celebrated the success of Chandrayaan-3 by distributing laddoos (sweets). We also protested against the non-payment of salary by handing out empty envelopes among ourselves,” SB Raju, ITI Employees Union and CITU state committee member, told Onmanorama.
Raju said the Kanjikode unit was the most profitable one among the five units coming under the ITI in the country. "Many of the important electronic circuits, including the 16 Head Mount Safe Arm (HMSA) and 9 Radio Frequency System (RMSA) units used in the Chandrayaan-3 lander, were completely manufactured at Kanjikode. These devices play a vital role in every step from launch to arrival at the target, including combustion and separation," he said.
"Kanjikode ITI is the only institute in India that manufactures these devices. ISRO has now awarded us a fresh contract to manufacture 200 units of HMSA required for the next mission. ISRO knows our hard work, the entire nation respects our efforts, but our management doesn’t," the union leader said.
Of the 293-strong highly-committed employees in the precision-demanding ITI Kanjikode plant, over 150 are officers, engineers or technicians, and of them, just 30 are permanent employees.
ITI Officers' Association general secretary Anil Kumar G, who is also the national organising secretary of the National confederation of officers association (NCOA), told Onmanorama that the basic issue was the shortage of working capital and the policies of the central government and the ITI management.
"Other than congratulating us for our good work, no financial packages are announced for the revival of ITI, which is the sole manufacturer in the telecommunication sector," he said.
On Tuesday, the employees protested by lighting candles in front of the ITI Kanjikode demanding the payment of salaries.
Top management sources admitted that there was severe financial crunch at the ITI. "At present, the ITI is following a centralised system, headquartered in Bangalore. We were profitable for five continuous years till the 2021-22 fiscal. Last fiscal, we went into a loss," a top official said. "At present, the ITI has a payout of Rs 18 crore every month to the PSU bank consortium. This outgo has disrupted components procurement, vendor payments, project execution and disbursal of salary and allowances to the employees," the official said.
The UPA government had announced a Rs-4,156 crore revival package in February 2014 and the successive NDA governments had cleared the amount. The major portion -- Rs 2,264 crore -- went only for Capex (money invested by a company to acquire or upgrade fixed, physical or non-consumable assets). "A turnaround is just around the corner," the top official said.
At the same time, sources said the previous management played a major role in pushing the ITI to this situation. "While the management focused only on capex, there was a severe financial crisis in procuring material and components which affected the product manufacturing. We could not finish many projects on time which reflected in the fund flow and many vendors were left unpaid. And we have not been able to utilise even 10 per cent of the high-end equipment we had procured," the source said.
The ITI has large property in the Electronic City which is now rented out to the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT). "Ever since the C-DOT started functioning in the ITI property they have not paid a penny as rent. The central government authorities earlier planned to give away the property free of cost to C-DOT, which was objected to by the ITI. The property itself is worth over Rs 1,500 crore, sufficient to clear some debts and arrange working capital for ITI. At least Rs 1,000 crore from the deal would provide a breathing space for our prestigious institute. The matter is now in front of the Administrative Mechanism for Resolution of CPSEs Disputes (AMRCD) and no one knows what the final decision would be,” the source said.
With Pragyan on the moon and Aditya nearing the sun, it is festival time for India. However, the ITI employees who were part of the twin accomplishments are still stuck in a dark zone. "We are proud and committed to work for the country. But our families should not be allowed to suffer," one of the employees told Onmanorama.
