HMC teetering on brink of collapse

ISLAMABAD: The coffers of Heavy Mechanical Complex (HMC) — another public sector entity — are fast depleting, as thousands of its employees have not got their three-month salary and the retiring employees are unable to get gratuity for the last one year.
The piecemeal approach cannot resolve the lingering crisis, as the organization has touched its lowest ebb because investments were never made to modernise old and outdated machines and skilled workforce was drained out through Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS), low salary packages and petty internal politics.
The future of over 1,000 workers, including 367 permanent employees, 202 officers, 16 supervisors and over 500 daily wage workers, is at stake and bread and butter is not available to their families because the organization has not got any orders for last few months.
Built in 1967 with Chinese financial and technical assistance, HMC was known as the symbol of Pak-China friendship where thousands of workers were working in several shifts into two entities known as HMC and HFF (Heavy Foundry & Forge).
These two sister organizations were known for building plants for cement, sugar, cranes, road roller and many other important industries of the country. The HMC also exported their products to many countries in the past mainly to the Middle East.
Once it was known for its lush green areas during 80s and 90s because of heavy workload and circulation of capital and its positive impact on increased economic activities but now the entity has literally turned into bushes and deadwood.
The sources said when the organization was facing acute financial crunch, four top guns were promoted as GM recently indicating apathy of management towards overall working performance of the entity. If their performance was good then why the HMC is on declining trends, the sources questioned.
There is need to hold an inquiry to ascertain facts as political regimes in the past also caused havoc to the HMC. Some sources said in the past some top guns had ordered sugar plant for their factory at lower price and the HMC management entertained them because of their influence.
However, the experts, who had worked in this organization, said the organization touched this lowest level because of ‘mismanagement’ of last one decade by those who remained at the helm but failed to discharge their responsibilities to this sinking ship afloat.
At the moment, the HMC can be saved from complete collapse on immediate basis if it remains able to get order from Naltar power project where the government wants to generate 14.4 MW electricity.
The HMC’s former director Hasnain Akhtar, who had also served as former MD Heavy Electrical Complex (HEC), when contacted by The News on Saturday, said this entity required a comprehensive restructuring plan to resolve its technical, financial and human resource problems in order to make it a profitable organization.
“Without a comprehensive restructuring plan, the HMC cannot be revived,” he added. The HMC, he concluded, required an independent study for making a plan on short, medium and long term basis to achieve its turnaround.
Now the government has appointed Mohammad Ali, a DMG officer, as the new MD who assumed his charge on last Friday.
When contacted by The News on Saturday, Mohammad Ali said he would make a comprehensive plan with timelines to turnaround this organization as soon as possible.
“I have taken this responsibility as a challenge and will work hard to achieve results,” he added.
He said the HMC had mainly relied upon sugar industry which was now causing them problems. Now the HMC will diversify its work where billions of rupees projects will be brought into pipeline.
Ali said he had achieved a turnaround with dedication and hard work where the generation capacity for making electricity transformers was increased by implementing a workable plan.
“I will run the HMC on the pattern of projects where targets will be achieved with exact timelines,” he added.
He also said they had released the salary of employees for September and the remaining dues will also be cleared.