Kerala wants Centre to drop HLL Life Care privatisation

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said that the government would consider passing a resolution in the Assembly pressing the Centre to desist from the move to privatise HLL Life Care. Replying to a calling attention motion of CPM MLA D.K.  Murali in the Assembly on Monday, the Chief Minister said that even as the state had urged the Centre couple of times to reconsider the decision to privatise HLL Life Care as well as Hindustan Newsprint, the Centre had not yet taken any favourable decisions.

“The government can consider passing a resolution in the Assembly on the matter,” the Chief Minister replied to a suggestion of Mr Murali. The Chief Minister said that the state government wrote to the Prime Minister on June 16 last year and the Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on February 20 urging that the decision should be reconsidered. The state even offered tax relaxations and government guarantee for bank loans for the company’s working capital.

Even then the Centre was going ahead with moves to privatise HLL Life Care, he added. The Chief Minister also said that the government had allotted 19 acres of land free of cost to Hindustan Latex Ltd that started in 1966. About 5,000 people are working in the Central PSU, which is also in the Miniratna category.  Congress MLA K. Muraleedharan also urged the state government to strongly pressurise the Centre to keep off from privatizing HLL Life Care.