Monday, October 27, 2014: Nokia India Thozhilalar Sangam, the workers’ union at Nokia, has been fearing that more job losses may occur soon at the Chennai unit and that’s why they have urged the Tamil Nadu government to convert the plant into an electronic zone. An electronic zone manufactures consumer electronics like TV, set top boxes, laptops and the plant would prefer to manufacture the same if mobile phone production is not feasible.
As reported earlier, Nokia India has decided to suspend their production at the Chennai plant from 1 November, as Microsoft has cancelled orders of low-end handsets. On Sunday CITU leader and MLA A Soundararajan met Union commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi and detailed about the job threat in the unit. The minister assured him that a solution will be chalked out within a week. In a conversation with The Financial Express, the leader said no major investment is required for the asked conversion as the plant has already necessary land, infrastructure, equipment and skilled workforce too. If some basic changes are made at the plant, it can be easily transformed into an electronic zone.
He added that they are also open to make a joint venture partner for the manufacturing purpose and assistance can be sought from ELCOT (Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu) too. He only asked joint cooperation from the union and the state government to meet their requirements as there is no lack of options, if the governments want to save jobs of 850-odd remaining workers at the factory. Almost 5,500 workers have already opted for VRS by now.
