Govt merges Britannia Engg Ltd, Saxby and Farmer Ltd

Kolkata: Taking a step ahead to revive two state government undertakings, the Mamata Banerjee government has amalgamated the companies of pre-independence era, Britannia Engineering Limited and Saxby and Farmer Limited.

The main target behind the amalgamation is to ensure that it turns to profit making ones. In a bid to do so, the state government has taken necessary steps for modernisation of both the companies that mainly carry out various engineering work.

The century old Saxby and Farmer Limited was taken over by the state government in 1969 and the name of the company was given as an honour to John Saxby and Stinson Farmer, who are considered as the inventors of railway signalling system.

Both the state government undertakings are under the state Public Works Department (PWD). Besides these two companies, Mackintosh Burn Limited is also under the state PWD. Now, Saxby and Farmer Limited and Britannia Engineering Limited have been merged. The amalgamation process has been completed following proper assessment. According to a senior official, there was excess manpower in both the companies. Despite the amalgamation, none of the excess employees had lost job as it was decided to deploy the excess manpower to other positions in the state PWD.

Concerned officials took interview of each of the excess employee to assess where they can be posted. Based on their work experience and certain other criteria, the employees were accordingly posted in new positions. Most of the employees have already been posted and the work to reinstate the remaining of them is going on.

The state government has taken many other steps to revive other such undertakings. It may be recalled that the state government had decided to bring Durgapur Projects Limited (DPL) under West Bengal State Electricity Board as its subsidiary.

According to experts, the thermal power generation station with eight units with a generating capacity of 650 MW power will get a new lease of life with the state's government's decision. In case of taking decision to restructure or liquefaction of Eastern Distilaries and Chemicals Limited and Himul, a diary of 200 smaller cooperative societies, none of the employees had lost their jobs.