New Delhi, Jan 22 (IANS): The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday approved the closure of Hindustan Fluorocarbons Ltd (HFL), a Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) under the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals.

Briefing the media after the cabinet meeting, Information Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the company was not operational and the decision only means an official closure of the public sector unit.

He said that the proposal, which included a voluntary retirement scheme was accepted by almost all the employees of the company, numbering just 88.

"It was a PSU, which was largely shut. Today the CCEA decided on official closure. When VRS was offered in BSNL, over 1 lakh employees opted for it, and here, there are 88 employees, so by and large there was a sort of consensus here," Javadekar said.

Hindustan Fluorocarbons was incorporated on July 14, 1983, as a subsidiary company of Hindustan Organic Chemicals Ltd (HOCL). The plant is located at Rudraram in district Sangareddy of Telangana.

The company started commercial production in 1987 and was engaged in the manufacture of Poly Tetra Fluoro Ethylene (PTFE) and of Chloro Di Fluoro Methane (CFM-22), according to the company website.

PTFE is used in chemical, mechanical, electrical and electronic industries and has strategic applications in the defence and aerospace sectors while CFM-22 is used pure or in mixture form for refrigeration.

The history segment on the company site said: "Over a period of time, some of the plants have become non-functional/obsolete and declared as plant held for disposal."