NAGPUR: In a New Year gift, Lloyds Metals and Energy Limited (LMEL), the only company with operational capacity iron ore mine and a next steel complex in Maoist affected areas gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, on Wednesday allotted the company’s shares, which closed at over Rs 1,260 in the stock market, for a face value of Rs 4 each to its workers.
The unit has also employed several surrendered Maoists.
The shares are intended for a workforce of 6,000 people and 80% of the beneficiaries are mine and plant workers. This makes it the only company, at least in recent years, where the beneficiaries of the share allocation of the plan will largely be workers, says the management.
The move makes workers at the district’s only major industrial unit also stakeholders in the company. The total value of the allocation amounts to Rs 1,000 crore in terms of market capitalization. The workers come from remote areas of Gadchiroli and others tribal areas.
The share certificates were handed over to Padma Shri tribal social worker Tulsi Munda, working in the company’s Odisha unit, along with two surrendered Maoists, by CM Devendra Fadnavis. Munda, 70, got 10,000 shares worth over Rs 1.25 crore.
Fadnavis thanked the company’s managing director B Prabhakaran for “having shown the courage to start mining where no one ventured”.
The CM told the workers that the shares will make them owners of the company. “Wait another five years and you will get five times returns… If B Prabhakaran is the CEO, you are the owners,” he said.
All workers who completed two years received shares based on their seniority. The minimum that a worker received was 100 shares. The amount increased, depending on the years placed.
The CM said there is no lock-in period for workers and there are plans to increase performance-based allowance in the coming days.
LMEL operates an iron ore mine with a capacity of 9 million tonnes in Gadchiroli pocket in Surjagadh, and plans to increase the capacity to 25 million. He is coming up with an integrated steel plant with an estimated investment of Rs 24,000-25,000 crore at Konsari village in the district.