Three PSUs account for over 85% of Pipdic loan dues, shows RTI

Puducherry: The Puducherry government-run Puducherry industries promotion, development and investment corporation (Pipdic) limited has an outstanding

loan

of Rs 107 crore as on March 31 this year and three public sector enterprises alone account for more than 85% (Rs 91.9 crore) of loan dues, says information provided to an RTI activist by V Adimoulame, Pipdic general manager (administration) and public information officer.

On August 10, RTI activist P Raghupathy filed an RTI seeking details of outstanding loans in Pipdic. He filed a first appeal after he was denied information. Later, as per the PIO’s direction, Raghupathy approached the Pipdic office and received the documents.

As per the information submitted by the corporation, Pondicherry textile corporation (Anglo French textiles) has availed industrial loans worth Rs 54.30 crore, Puducherry cooperative sugar mill limited took loans worth Rs 21.94 crore and Jayaprakash Narayan cooperative spinning mill limited Rs 15.65 crore as on March 31 this year, he said.

“All the three public sector units failed to repay the loans with interest availed from Pipdic on several occasions. It is learnt that PSUs used the industrial loans to provide salaries to the workers instead of investing in promoting the units,” Raghupathy said.

“The faulty policies of the government will turn all its PSUs into sick units. Presently, Pipdic runs in profit. If the prevailing situation continues, the unit will incur losses soon,” he added.

He urged the lieutenant governor Kiran Bedi to direct Pipdic officials to initiate efforts to recover the arrears from the three PSUs at the earliest. “The government, which has launched efforts to recover arrears in excise duty, property tax and electricity charges from the defaulters, must take initiatives in recovering the arrears from the PSUs,” he said.


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