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Balco hopes for an early end to impasse

Newly privatised aluminium firm Baclo said on Saturday that it is expecting an early end to the strike at its plant in Korba.

"We have succeeded in improving communication with the striking employees and hope that the impasse would end soon," the company's new managing director S C Krishnan said.

Balco, which accounts for 15 per cent of India's aluminium output, had appealed to the workers union to maintain the smelter at its plant in Korba in the newly created Chhattisgarh.

The company had to shut down its smelter on Friday after only 25 workers turned up instead of the 175 to 200 needed.

Some 7,000 workers at the plant went on strike last Saturday in protest against the government's sale of its controlling stake in Bharat Aluminium Co Ltd to Sterlite Industries.

The sale is the Union government's first big privatisation in a decade of economic reforms and a test of its plans to accelerate divestment in state companies.

Union leaders said they were willing to negotiate with the Union government as well as the Chhattisgarh state.

"Employees are willing to talk to the state and federal governments but not to the Balco management," Brahma Singh, a Balco union leader, said from Korba.

Singh said the unions wanted the Chhattisgarh government to take over the company instead of Sterlite and run it in partnership with the Union government.

The new Balco management has estimated Rs 4 million of daily losses due to the strike and said it could cost over Rs 1 billion to restart the smelter.

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