Feud between founding brothers of Usha Martin comes out in public

RANCHI: Usha Martin Limited, (UML), one of the world’s largest wire rope manufacturing company, is facing tough times — both financially and in terms of reputation. The differences among the founding brothers Brij Kishore Jhawar and Basant Jhawar has not only reached the court and the law enforcement agencies, but the octogenarians industrialists are now washing their dirty linen in public.
On Sunday, Basant Kumar Jhawar and his son Prashant Jhawar, who were ousted as chairman emeritus and non-executive chairman of the company, addressed the media to clarify that they are in no mood to sell the wire and wire rope division of the UML as was being publicixed by his brother (Brij Kishore) and nephew (Rajeev).

“I started my business in this state way back in 1960 and Usha Martin wire rope which was in joint venture with the Scotland-based company started production in 1962. We have been giving dividends since 1963 which continued for five decades until I handed it over to my nephew Rajeev Jhawar, who out of personal greed and vested interest, completely destroyed the ethos,” Basant claimed. Flanked by his son Prashant, who looks after the company business in London, the senior Jhawar expressed disappointment over alleged false propaganda by his brother. “Like in UML, we are equal stakeholders in one of the vernacular dailies, but I never used it as a platform to use it in my personal interest. However, the same vernacular has been used to give an impression that we are willing to sell off the Usha Martin rope and wire rope division,” he, said clarifying that they are concerned about the 3,300 odd workers in the factory, apart from the large number of suppliers, the transporters and their families.

Prashant claimed that the steel division of Usha Martin in Jamshedpur was sold to the Tata group only because the incumbent MD Rajeev Jhawar failed in financial management. “Rajeev tried to restructure the debt of UML under the S4A scheme of RBI in January 2018 but when RBI scrapped the scheme in February 2018, his attempt to give haircut to lenders, banks and restructure the debt became unsuccessful. As a result, was forced to sell off the steel division of UML constituting 65% of its revenue worth to the Tata group,” he said.

The father son duo also alleged that incumbent MD of UML has acquired property in Singapore in 2013 and it was because of these personal interests that the UML went into losses and money continued to be siphoned off. “The ED office has issued notice to both Rajeev and his father Brij Kishore enquiring about source of funds for the purchase of property in Singapore,” Prashant said.

Though the MD (Rajeev) was not available to respond to the allegations, the company spokesperson said all allegations levelled against the MD and his father are baseless and false. “Once they have filed cases in the ED and National Company Law Tribunal, what is the need to discuss things in public? The investigating agencies would come up with a report about who is right and who is wrong,” he said. Rajeev and his father have been saying that it is a family dispute and the PRO reiterated the same to TOI. Prashant, however, refused to buy the arguments of family feud but corporate fraud. He also said Rajeev took SBI, which is one of the stakeholders among public holding institutions, into confidence to oust them. “We have filed a case against the DGM of SBI, Sunil Srivastava, who was with Rajeev to orchestrate the removal and Calcutta HC has allowed including his name in the case,” he added.