Britain's drug regulator revoked the quality compliance certificate for a Wockhardt Ltd factory in India, the drugmaker said on Tuesday, the third of its plants to be hit by Shipping operations at Nhava Sheva port near Mumbai have been badly hit due to wage disagreements between workers and the management at Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT), one of three independent ports in the area.
This comes at a time when the government is trying to push exports to address the problem of an expanding current account deficit. NSICT is an associate company of DP World of Dubai and has Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) as a partner.
The disruptions in the entire port area, which also has the government-run JNPT and privately-owned GTI, started after labour troubles at NSICT on October 15. The port's labour union alleged that NSICT had declared a lockout which was illegal. This was denied by the company. On its part, NSICT alleged that trouble started after labourers adopted a 'go slow' strategy. The three ports together handle the largest volume of containers in India.
As a result, movement of traffic around the port area has been affected. Police said that because of the strike, multi-axle trailers which were unable to enter the ports were stranded along the road leading towards JNPT area.
A shipping agent told TOI that some foreign shipping companies have started calling off ships from coming to the ports at these facilities due to the slow movement of cargo. According to data from the Indian Ports Association, JNPT alone handled 64.5 million tonnes of traffic in 2012-13 which ranked it as the second biggest port in India.
According to C N Patil, union leader at NSICT, the company declared an illegal lockout at its facility at Nhava Sheva on October 15 and kept the labourers out of the area. NSICT got people from some other Indian ports to handle regular operations inside the port area, he further alleged.
The genesis of the trouble is the wage agreement between NSICT and the labour union. Patil said that in July 2011, the two sides signed an agreement under which NSICT agreed to a wage hike but later retracted on the same. They alleged that the labourers have not been given any hike for several years, but the company said that the wage is negotiated every four years. The last wage agreement, according to NSICT, was concluded in July 2013.
In an email to TOI, NSICT said that the workers "under instructions from their union leaders, commenced this go-slow in operations even though the matter regarding their request for wage increases is under conciliation at the office of the Assistant Labour Commissioner (Central)".
The company also said on Tuesday it received "an injunction from the Industrial Court Maharashtra to restrain the union and its officers from stopping any vehicle/container plying in and outside the terminal" and also from stopping "the ingress and egress of willing workers entering and leaving the terminal".
As a fallout of the troubles at NSICT and the decline in operational efficiencies at adjoining ports, shipping companies are diverting vehicles from NSICT, according to an email accessed by TOI from a shipping company to its shipping agents in Mumbai. Officials at shipping agencies said that the magnitude of the trouble is such that even if it is resolved amicably in a day or two, it would take about two weeks for normalization of operations.ort restrictions this year.
The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency will instead issue a restricted certificate, which means Wockhardt will be able to supply only "critical" products from the factory located in Kadaiya in western India, the company said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the UK regulator took away the generic drugmaker's good manufacturing practice (GMP) certificate for its key Chikalthana factory. Last week, the UK regulator issued a recall for drugs made at the plant.
The UK regulator's measures followed a ban by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on drug shipments to the United States from a separate Wockhardt factory in Waluj, after hygiene and other compliance deficiencies were found. The UK agency later recalled products made at the Waluj plant.
Wockhardt, which has seven plants in India, said on Tuesday the impact of the MHRA's decision on existing business will only be known once it receives further communication.
The company's shares were down as much as 4 percent after it issued the statement before paring some losses to trade down 2 percent at 468.35 rupees. The main index was trading down 0.2 percent. Its shares have lost nearly 80 percent since their record-high in March.
Source:- timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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