A delegation of 18 soft coke industry owners of Nirsa area of Dhanbad led by former Nirsa MLA, Arup Chatterjee met the Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner Uma Shankar Singh on Monday. They sought the deputy commissioner’s intervention for relaunching of their units, lying closed for more than eight months.

The industry owners claimed that the local police at Nirsa is not allowing them to operate their respective units and also threatens them. The police also implicated one factory owner in a false case when he tried to relaunch his unit.

Notably, soft coke is primarily used in hotels, restaurants for cooking purposes in ovens.

Talking to The Telegraph Online after meeting with the deputy commissioner, Chatterjee said, “The DC after meeting us expressed surprise over the restriction of permission for operating the factories and instructed the Additional District Magistrate (Law and Order) Chandan Kumar to conduct an inquiry into the issue and take appropriate action, accordingly.”

“Even as the government has allowed the opening of all industrial units from April 20 without making any distinction on the types of industry but the local police at Nirsa led by officer-in-charge of Nirsa police station, Subhash Kumar is preventing the opening of soft coke industry owners from opening their units,” informed Kumar.

Echoing sentiments, Prem Singh, one of the soft coke industry owners, who was part of the delegation, said, “We have never faced such a situation of a financial crisis during the last 20 years as all our raw materials are lying locked in our units and money rotation is not taking place due to closure of the unit.”

“Despite the closure, we are compelled to pay bank loan, EMIs, fixed charges of electricity, labour payments, etc. further affecting our situation,” said Singh and added that though some of the industries started operation after April 20, they were later forcibly closed by the police.

“The police also charge us of using stolen coal as raw materials in our units but the fact remains that we purchased the coal from the coal company, BCCL and CIL by participating in the auction,” charged another factory owner and added that if the situation continues they will have no option other than to completely close down the industries.

“The permanent closure of industries will affect the future of around 200 workers working with us,” said a factory owner and added that they also had a telephonic talk with the ADM (Law and Order) Chandan Kumar following the meeting with the DC Uma Shankar Singh who assured to sort out the issue within a week.