Ever since Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced plans to corporatise the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), in May, there has been employee unrest in the defence organisation. Worker unions have been protesting the move. But the step towards corporatisation has been gathering pace over the last few months, with an empowered group of ministers (EGoM) constituted to oversee the process. KPMG Advisory Services Pvt Ltd, along with Khaitan & Co, has also been roped in to provide strategic and implementation management consulting services to help the Department of Defence Production with the corporatisation of OFB.
The move towards corporatisation seems to have come at the behest of the military, which wants a reliable supplier of ammunition, especially at a time when the situation along our borders is uneasy.
On the other hand, the 80,000-odd employees of OFB fear this could just be…