Nutty affair: KSCDC ate up Rs 500 crore in 10 years
The total outgo on account of salary of 15,000 employees in this period would be Rs 450 crore
Update: 2015-08-19 05:15 GMT
Kochi: The state capital recently witnessed a hunger strike of a different kind: Mr R. Chandrasekharan, state president of Indian National Trade Union Congress, the labour arm of the Congress which leads the government in the state, went on a hunger strike demanding the suspension of additional chief secretary (finance) Dr K.M. Abraham.
The charge: the official refused to implement a cabinet decision to release Rs 30 crore to the Kerala State Cashew Development Corporation (KSCDC), which Mr Chandrasekharan heads, on the plea that a corrupt coterie is at the helm of the company and that further financial assistance will help neither the company nor the employees.
The fast ended in a day with an assurance from Chief Minister Oommen Chandy that the government will take steps for the release of the money. Why should Dr Abraham, an official, object to a cabinet decision, after all?
As per an affidavit filed in the High Court by Dr K.A. Ratheesh, who has been managing director of the company since 2005, it has received financial aid from the government every year, which amounted to Rs 369.49 crore in the last 10 years alone! Add the Rs 30 crore grant the cabinet has now cleared, it would be Rs 399.49 crore.
In the same period, the company accumulated a liability of about Rs 100 crore which included arrears in gratuity, provident fund and the money payable to suppliers and advances received from buyers.
Thus the company has made a demand of Rs 500 crore on the state exchequer in the last 10 years. (This figure does not include a one-time settlement the company had arrived at with banks for Rs 100 crore in 2003.
The company is yet to make the payment and government sources estimate the liability to be around Rs 200 crore now.
Given that the company has on an average given employment on 150 days a year in the last 10 years to 15,000 employees, and each employee gets an average Rs 200 a day, including bonus and other incentives, the total outgo per employee during the period would be Rs 3 lakh.
The total outgo on account of salary of 15,000 employees in this period would be Rs 450 crore.
Given that the liabilities the company has incurred in the period combined with the financial support it received would amount to about Rs 500 crore, it would have been profitable for the government to disburse the money directly to the employees rather than running the company.
No wonder the P.H. Kurian committee, which inquired into the charges of corruption in the company, said the corporation treated the government treasury as an Akshayapatra.