While many employees lamented the decline of HMT watches, they also welcomed the move accepting it as a pragmatic reality.

The iconic watchmaker, who took pride in being the country’s timekeeper, will finally stop ticking. Bringing curtains down on the uncertainty over the HMT Watches Ltd., which once held monopoly in watch market in the country, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday announced closure of HMT Watches Ltd., along with HMT Chinar Watches Ltd. and HMT Bearings Ltd.

While many employees lamented the decline of HMT watches, they also welcomed the move accepting it as a pragmatic reality.

Most of the 923 employees of HMT Watches Ltd. spread over its three units in Bengaluru and Tumakuru in Karnataka and Ranibagh in Uttarakhand are ready to accept the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) package offered and end their service to the watchmaker. HMT Chinar Watches Ltd., the unit in Srinagar (Jammu and Kashmir), earlier part of HMT Watches Ltd., has about 40 employees. According to Union sources, they too are ready to accept the VRS package.

P R Chandrashekhar of the HMT Employees’ Union, said that the employees had rejected an earlier VRS offer made last year when closure was contemplated. According to Mr. Chandrashekar, the government had offered the VRS package based on the 1992 pay scale.

“Other HMT units have seen a pay revision in 1997 and 2007 since then, denied to us. We had demanded that the VRS package be based on the 2007 pay scale, to which the government has now agreed to. All of us are ready to accept it as it ensures a good package,” he said. The government has announced an assistance of Rs. 427.48 crore towards this end.

Of the four units, only Tumakuru unit is still functional producing watches for institutional orders. One of the workers there said that they were not paid salaries for the past nine months and there was no hope for revival, forcing them to accept the VRS. “We also need money to marry off our daughters and fund our children’s higher education,” he added.

Last Recruitment in 1987



More crucially, none of the 923 employees has more than eight years of service left. Most of them are on the verge of retirement as the last person recruited by HMT Watches Ltd. was in 1987, almost three decades ago.

Closure procedure to take time

Though the Union government has announced the closure of HMT Watches Ltd., it is likely to take another three to four months for the procedure to be completed and for the units to be formally closed. However, the production of new watches is likely to be stopped immediately. An official in HMT Watches Ltd., said that the management was targeting for the completion of procedure by the end of the financial year. However, he was sceptical of the deadline and said that it might take a little longer. The management is also likely to set the ball rolling for liquidation of its assets including land, which is expected to take a longer period.

Surge in sales

The news of imminent closure of HMT Watches Ltd. in December 2014 spiked the sale of the watches manufactured by the company through out the last one year, sources said. A salesperson employed at one of the HMT outlets in the city, said that the news of closure revived interest in HMT watches and citizens and collectors queued before the outlets to buy a HMT watch. “Earlier we sold an average 60 watches a month … now we are selling nearly 150 watches a month,” he said. The popular models of HMT watches - Janata, Pilot and Inox - are in demand, he added.