Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha MP Medha Kulkarni took to X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday and said she would work to restore the glory of Hindustan Antibiotics Limited (HAL).
HAL, located in Pune's Pimpri-Chinchwad, is the first public-sector undertaking in the drugs and pharmaceutical sector. Set up on March 13, 1954, HAL is India's first drug manufacturing unit to commercially produce penicillin, streptomycin, gentamicin, ampicillin, amoxicillin, etc. However, in the last few years, many issues have cropped up in the company.
Meanwhile, Kulkarni visited HAL and promised its workers to call a meeting with Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers Jagat Prakash Nadda to address their issues. She said, "I have recently been appointed the president of the HAL Employees' Association. Therefore, I organised a visit to this company. During this, I held a meeting with Managing Director Neerja Saraf and other heads and discussed the problems of the company and the employees, and then addressed a public meeting of the employees. I will meet Union Minister Jagat Prasad Nadda and discuss various issues related to drug manufacturing and the pending salary hike of the employees and try to solve these issues."
"Hindustan Antibiotics is a 70-year-old famous company in Pune district, and I will try to restore this company to its former glory and resolve the issues of its employees," she added.
Last year in October, Kulkarni met Nadda in New Delhi and discussed issues of the retired employees of HAL. She presented the 11 points mentioned in the letter given to her by the retired employees' organisation in detail to the minister. She stated that the Union Minister "listened attentively to all the points, including the discriminatory attitude of HAL management towards the employees and the problems arising from it, and assured to address it immediately and take necessary action."
