By Sahadev K
The enormous success of the Chandrayan Mission of Indian Space Research Organisation ( ISRO) has resulted in the entire nation applauding the stupendous scientific achievement in space exploration by Indian space scientists. The success has filled school and college students with a sense of joy and pride across the nation. This will go a long way in developing scientific
temperament amongst them.
However the nation-wide rejoicing over the success of Chandrayan Mission has not gone well with certain political parties and left leaning idealogues. Like the proverbial rat in a French perfume factory searching for the nearest drainage hole, these persons have been deriding the success of Chandrayan Mission by spreading false news about ‘non-payment of salaries to Chandrayan Mission engineers’. In a social media post by Congress spokesperson Sri K C Venugopal and a video released by left leaning Professor Nageswar ( in Telugu) the following questions were posed:
- Why did the HEC engineers who worked on Chandrayaan 3 did not receive their salaries for the last 17 months?
- Why did you cut the budget for such crucial missions by 32%?
These are the heroes of our country, they run a world-class space research program, but you have no regard for their talent and hard work. To add insult to injury, you hogged the limelight when that moment was about the scientists’ achievements
The question to be asked is
- Whether scientists and engineers working for ISRO’s Chandrayan Mission were not paid salaries
for past several months?
OR
- Whether employees of a sub-contractor of ISRO namely, Heavy Engineering Corporation, Ranchi
were not paid salaries for past several months?
The answer is that HEC, Ranchi has not paid salaries to its employees in the past several months. What is the liability of ISRO to pay salaries to employees of HEC? NIL…! HEC has done fabrication work for ISRO for its various space exploration programmes. ISRO has fully discharged its contractual obligations by clearing all payments to HEC, Ranchi. How can the inability of HEC, Ranch to pay salaries to its employees be linked to central government? Does this deserve posts in social media with slogans like “Are you not ashamed, PM Modi”?
Anyone familiar with the affairs of HEC, Ranchi will know that this PSU is a perennially sick baby right from its establishment in 1958.The Parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings ( COPU) in its Thirteen Report covering the years 1971-72 has remarked as follows:
The gross profit at full production in 1970-71 in the projects of the Corporation is expected to be 9 per cent of the capital employed and the net profit after taking into account the interest charges will be only 4.5 per cent. The Committee were also informed that by 1970-71, there would be an accumulated loss of about Rs. 20 crores and it would take the Corporation about
3-4 years to wipe off the losses. As such the real profits will be only from 1975-76, i.e., sixteen years after the establishment of the Corporation and even then the net profit will be at the rate of 4.5 per cent of the capital employed. The Committee are unhappy to observe that the expected profitability of the plants of the Corporation is so low. The main reasons for the low
profits are the higher capital investment and higher cost of production due to low productivity and large inventories etc.
An article published in the prominent news magazine India Today dated November, 30, 1991 reads as follows:
The Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) is on a death trail. A cash crunch that makes the Rs81-crore annual salary bill look an impossibility. Rs 278 crore in accumulated losses that have eroded the capital twice over, blank order books, labour problems, a callous management and a government that reacts too late have pushed the Ranchi-based public sector unit to the brink.
For 1991-92, the company faces losses of Rs 66 crore on a turnover of Rs 375 crore. Last month, the State Bank of India reduced HEC’S cash credit limit by Rs 30 crore to Rs 120 crore. “It’s as good as dead,” says a senior executive.
The losses incurred by HEC, Ranchi for the years 2020-21 and 2021-22 are Rs.175.77 crores and Rs.256.07 crores respectively. Thus the sorry state of affairs of HEC, Ranchi are in public domain for the last 50 years. Yet those who are well aware of these facts feign ignorance of the same and try to snatch away the mood of joy that is sweeping across the nation on account of the historic achievement of the nation by successfully landing on the moon.
The public posts by people like Sri K C Venugopal of Indian National Congress and Professor Nageswar clearly demonstrate that petty political and ideological differences have been escalated into hate for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This does not augur well for a healthy democracy. There are issues where national interest and national pride should take precedence over all other issues. Mission Chandrayan is one such issue. Unfortunately, certain political parties and intellectuals of this country have failed to rise to the occasion. Such nit picking and attempts to spread pessimism and hate have failed to dampen the jubilant mood across the nation arising from the success of India’s Mission Chandrayan.
The author is senior associate at Centre for South Indian Studies (CSIS)
Arise Bharat 
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