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Day after Rahul’s visit, two more jute mills shut down in Bengal
As 16 of 56 jute mills in the state have remained shut for over a month now, Rahul Gandhi's visit was to provide some hopes to the owners as well as the workers that the factories would survivie. However, with the closure of two more, the count being 18 now, more than 75,000 workers are now unemployed.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s visit to West Bengal’s jute hub to understand the crisis-plagued sector follows the closure of two more mills on Sunday, taking the total number of closed factories in the state to 18.
Gandhi visited Wellington Jute Mill in Hooghly district on Saturday, spent time with the workers and promised to highlight their woes at Parliament and other forums.
The visit came at a time the industry is going through one of its worst crisis as 16 of 56 jute mills in the state have remained shut for over a month now, leaving more than 70,000 workers without a livelihood.
A day after his tour, the managements of India Jute Mill in Serampore, located barely 5km from the factory that Gandhi visited, and North Brook Jute Mill in Bhadreshwar announced ending operations indefinitely. Five of the 10 jute mills in Hooghly district are closed now.
The Serampore-based mill blamed worker absenteeism for losses and eventual closure. “We had to close down because workers seldom turn up. We have 4,000 workers employed and need at least 3,500 to run the mill. But only about 2,400 workers were reporting recently,” said mill owner Sanjay Kajaria.
Similarly, the management of North Brook Jute Mill, where CEO HK Maheshwari was lynched a year ago, blamed low productivity. “Productivity has been very low in two departments. We wrote several times to government officials at various levels and discussed the issue with the labour unions. But nothing could change the situation,” proprietor Prakash Choraria said.
Mill owners had cited various reasons, including lack of orders from the government, low productivity and indiscipline among workers to shut their once-lucrative business. Industry insiders, however, said the actual crisis was triggered by lack of government orders. Besides, the industry owners were trying to put the unions under pressure to enforce discipline particularly in two fields: absenteeism and productivity.
“Both these points were part of a new wage agreement. While the wages have increased, the discipline part has not been implemented. When combined with lack of orders, these two issues make running the mills very difficult,” owner of a closed mill said.
Trade unions agree with eth management about the dip in business from lack of government orders because plastic bags have replaced jute sacks for packing foodgrain in granaries.
“The Centre’s pro-synthetic policy is killing the jute industry. They are promoting plastic despite jute being environment friendly. We will launch a series of agitations against the Centre’s policies,” said Dilip Bhattacharya, state secretary of UTUC (LS).
A senior Trinamool Congress minister said the industry owners have possibly used Gandhi’s visit to mount pressure on the government. “They are trying to use this opportunity.”
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