Hindustan Cables Limited (HCL) was a government-owned company that made telecom cables in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It was under the

Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises The Ministry of Heavy Industries is an executive agency of the Government of India. The Ministry entails for promoting the engineering industry viz. machine tools, heavy electrical, industrial machinery, and auto industry and administration of ...

Foundation and growth

Hindustan Cables was founded at

Rupnarayanpur Rupnarayanpur, Rupnarainpur or Hindustan Cables Township, is a census town in the Salanpur CD block in the Asansol Sadar subdivision of the Paschim Bardhaman district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Geography Location Rupnarayanpur is l ...

Asansol Asansol is a (Tier-II) metropolitan city in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the second largest and most populated city of West Bengal and the 33rd largest urban agglomeration in India. Asansol is the district headquarters of Paschim Bar ...

, West Bengal in 1952. Present headquarters is Kolkata. The objective was to make India self-reliant in manufacturing communications cables. The company has grown to make a broader line of products in locations in

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

(Telangana),

Naini Naini (also known as Naini Industrial Area) is a satellite neighborhood and a twin city of Prayagraj in Prayagraj district, Uttar Pradesh, India. By the 1950s Naini was established as the chief industrial area of the city. History Naini had a ...

, Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh) as well as the original plant in

. In 1984 HCL acquired Machine Tool Works in

Narendrapur Narendrapur is a neighbourhood in the Rajpur Sonarpur of the South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). Geography Area overview Bar ...

, Calcutta from

Cycle Corporation of India Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to: Anthropology and social sciences * Cyclic history, a theory of history * Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. * Social cycle, various cycles in soc ...

. Products include jelly-filled and fibre-optic cables, telephone and computer cords.

Decline

HCL was profitable until 1994, but began incurring losses in 1995. The company was referred to the

Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) was a development finance institution under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India, part of the Department of Financial Services of the Ministry of Finance. Set up ...

, which was unable to revive it. At one time the company had over 7,000 workers, but by August 2006 there were fewer than half that number and in 2003

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Bharat, or Bharath, may refer to: * Bharat (term), the name for India in various Indian languages ** Bharata Khanda, the Sanskrit name for the Indian subcontinent (or South Asia) * Bharata, the name of several legendary figures or groups: ** Bha ...

(BSNL), the state-owned telecom provider, stopped placing orders.

Tata Consultancy Services Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an Indian multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company with its headquarters in Mumbai. It is a part of the Tata Group and operates in 150 locations across 46 countries. In July ...

was brought in to review the situation and recommended investment to diversify into new product lines. On 17 August 2006 there was a debate in

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...

on revival of HCL, whose employees were not being paid their salaries.

Revival

In 2002 the ministry was considering merging HCL with the

Ordnance Factory Board Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), consisting of the Indian Ordnance Factories, now known as Directorate of Ordnance (Coordination & Services) was an organisation, under the Department of Defence Production (DDP) of Ministry of Defence (MoD), Gove ...

. In the years 2011–13 proposal was submitted for handing over HCL to Ministry of Defence. Good progress has been made and restructuring is under way for the organisation. Several visits were made to the units by IOFS officers. Further action is underway, awaiting budget sanction, but nothing is held. Eighteen months' salary of employees are still pending.

References

Manufacturing companies established in 1952 Government-owned companies of India Defunct manufacturing companies of India Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2016 Companies based in Kolkata Indian companies established in 1952 Indian companies disestablished in 2016 1952 establishments in West Bengal {{India-company-stub