Goa Handicraft Development Corp in financial distress

Faced with an acute fund shortage, several employees of Goa Handicraft Rural and Small Scale Industries Development Corporation are without salaries for last two months, the officials confirmed today.
The state-run body has witnessed its revenue plunging after two of its important customers - State Public Works Department and Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation - relaxed the norms for its contractors mandating to buy steel from the corporation.
"There is severe drop in revenue as handicraft sales have come down. The major source of income for the corporation was steel which was to be mandatorily purchased by contractors working for PWD and GSIDC," corporation chairman Lavu Mamlatdar told PTI today.

The shrinking finances have left around 60 workers of the corporation's head office here and various outlets without salary for the last months.
Mamlatdar said the corporation was expecting to be salvaged from the financial crisis from the grants provided by the government.
"We are yet to receive Rs 60 lakh grants from the government, and without this we cannot pay salaries," he said.

The corporation was set up to promote handicraft items.
The chairman said the corporation has an annual salary liability of Rs 1.5 crore.
"Contractors have stopped purchasing steel from us. We have made various representations to chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar asking him either to make it mandatory for the contractors to buy the steel from us or at least release the pending grants," he said.