Bangalore: Titan Industries Ltd, the Tata group watch and jewellery products-maker, has declared a lock-out at its Hosur factories, following a strike call by its labour union.

The lock-out is effective from February 13 at the watch and jewellery division at Hosur in Tamil Nadu, which has a total workforce of over 1,700 employees, an official spokesman of Titan said on February 27.

However, he said the Titan's assembly unit at Dehradun, which employs around 150 people, remains unaffected.

The employees' union had gone on a six-day strike in January this year, following the non-settlement of the three-year wage revision which was due from April 2002.

The union earlier this month had given a notice to go on strike after negotiations with the management failed.

Titan has a total workforce of over 3,000 people.

Titan had delayed the wage revision due to a pending Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) last year, in which 606 employees including 432 blue-collared workers took the VRS.

The spokesman said the issue was being looked into by the deputy-commissioner, Labour.

He said the sales of Titan products had not been affected during the current quarter as there had been sufficient stock build-up at various dealers and stockists.

Titan recorded a revenue of Rs 727.02 crore and a net profit of Rs 13.09 crore during the last fiscal. During the first half of current financial year, sales stood at Rs 310.94 crore with a net loss of Rs 8.16 crore.

PTI