Parle Products, the biscuits and confectionery major, recently announced that it may be forced to lay off up to 10,000 workers over the next year, quoting slowdown in demand due to high GST rate.
CLAIM
Charu Pragya, who is the national legal in-charge of BJP Youth Wing and is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claimed that Parle-G has only 4,480 employees and hence the laying off of 10,000 is not possible.
Her tweet carried screenshots of a Hindu Business Line report and another report which Pragya claimed was the annual report of Parle Products to support her claim.
The post said: “ParleG doesn’t even have 10,000 employees. Check their Annual Report for 2018-19, they have 4,480 employees. How are they planning to lay off 10,000 employees then (sic)?”
An archived version of the tweet can be viewed here.
At the time of writing the story, the tweet had garnered over 2,800 retweets and over 5,000 likes. The Quint also received a query from a reader to verify the authenticity of the claim.
The post was widely shared on Facebook as well.
WHAT IS THE TRUTH?
The claim is false. The 2018-19 annual report in the tweet is of Parle Products’ rival company Britannia Industries, which showed the total number of employees on rolls as 4,480.
WHAT WE FOUND
The report shared by users has Britannia Industries Limited written on its top left corner.
After we looked up Britannia's report, we found that the screenshot shared by the user is of the original report by Britannia.
As for the number of employees in Parle Products, according to news agency PTI, the company has a total of 10 manufacturing units of its own and another 125 through third-party manufacturers, and currently employs a total of around 100,000 people directly and indirectly in its biscuits and related business.
"We have not laid off people, this would happen if things don't improve," Mayank Shah Senior Category Head Parle Products told PTI.
He said problems started for the industry when GST was implemented in 2017 when biscuits were clubbed in a single 18 percent category in contrast to the earlier tax regime when biscuits priced below Rs 100 per kg were exempted from excise duty.
The industry had approached the government to rectify it but so far, no steps have been taken, he said.
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