West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting a rethink on the process of corporatising ordnance factories for the sake of national security and the country’s defence.
“I have been receiving reports regarding a decision that the Government of India has apparently been taking to corporatise all the Ordnance Factories including the Ordnance Factory Board, with its Head Quarters in Kolkata. It has also been suggested that this will finally lead to privatisation of these great national assets,” Banerjee wrote.
Various committees constituted by the ministry of defence have suggested corporatisation of the OFB to help it function under its own board of directors. Employees of the Ordnance Factory at Tiruchirapalli had staged a protest against the Centre’s decision at on Monday.
Banerjee in her letter wrote that this was an “extremely sensitive and urgent issue” and added how important the OFB is for the country.
The OFB has 41 factories with over 200 years of experience in defence production. It is involved in production, testing, logistics, research, development and marketing of a range of products in land, sea and air systems, according to its website.
Indian Ordnance Factories is the oldest and largest industrial setup which functions under the department of defence production of the Ministry of Defence. It has about 1.6 lakh officers and employees and nine training institutes across the country.
“I am shocked and surprised to know that this vital pillar of the country’s defence and this key industrial initiative for our land is now being contemplated to be subjected to a sudden exercise of degovernmentalisation for which there has been not even an iota of stakeholders’ consultations uptill now,” Banerjee wrote.
She added in her letter that the West Bengal government did not have an “inkling” of the “discourses” that have led to the “inexplicable initiatives” taken by the Centre.
She requested the Centre to “stall and reverse” the process of corporatisation and privatisation. “I urge you to kindly keep that role of national custodiananship unaffected in future too,” she wrote.
[Cover image: Ordnance Factory Board office in Kolkata]
