The Opposition Congress and ruling BJP MPs from Assam are on the same page on reviving the two defunct paper mills in the state but affected employees, while welcoming their concern, said they wanted their dues and immediate revival of the units.

Assam PCC president and Rajya Sabha MP Ripun Bora raised the plight of the employees and revival of the mills on September 15 in the Upper House, while BJP MP Rajdeep Roy tried to attract the attention of the Centre to the defunct mills and its affected employees on Tuesday in the Lok Sabha.

Around 6,000 permanent and contractual employees of Cachar Paper Mill at Panchgram in Barak Valley’s Hailakandi district and Nagaon Paper Mill at Jagiroad in central Assam’s Morigaon district have been affected after they closed down in October 2015 and March 2017 respectively.

Not only the employees of the two Hindustan Paper Corporation Limited units have not got their salaries for the past 44 and 42 months respectively but also 71 of them have died, of whom three ended their lives, allegedly because of trauma and ailments they suffered after they stopped receiving salaries. There have been a series of protests, memoranda submitted for revival of the mills and clearing of their salary dues and repeated assurances from both governments but to no avail, according to union leaders.

Bora said in the Upper House that the government should promptly act on its commitment to revive the mills, which were profit-making before their closure, and also clear their dues. He said the livelihoods of about 2 lakh people directly or indirectly dependent on the two mills have been affected.

Roy, who is from Barak Valley, highlighted the plight of the employees and the impact of the mills on them and over 1 lakh bamboo growers of the region.

Drawing the attention of the Prime Minister and the industry minister, he urged the government to clear the employees’ dues in two to three instalments and suggested revival of the mills by roping in a private party or through the public-private partnership (PPP) mode. He also blamed a corrupt section of the mills for their closure.

The concern of the employees are not without reasons because the liquidator for the HPC, Kuldeep Verma, had on September 14 submitted a fresh plea in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) seeking liquidation of the mills because it would be in the “interest of all stakeholders” for the company’s assets to be liquidated so as to “maximize the realization for distribution among the stakeholders as per law”. The plea contended that past efforts have failed.

The Assam industry department had on September 10 in a letter to the HPC’s liquidator requested him to seek a month’s time from the NCLT since chief minister Sarbananda sonowal was seriously pursuing the issue of reviving the paper mills with the Centre. The next NCLT hearing is on October 7.

Manabendra Chakraborty, president of the Joint Action Committee of Recognised Unions (JACRU) of the two mills, Dipak Chandra Nath, general secretary of the Cachar Paper Mill Officers and Supervisors’ Association, and Azizur Rahman Mazumder, general secretary of Cachar Paper Project Workers and Employees’ Union, told the media they appreciated the concern of the two MPs but wanted the Centre to clear their dues and save the two mills from liquidation by initiating its revival.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in a poll rally at Kali Nagar (near the Cachar Paper Mill in Hailakandi district) on March 27, 2016, promised the revival of the mill. Time has come for the Centre to act and save the mills and their employees,” Chakraborty said.

He said they also wanted all hard-earned dues to be released in one go and not in instalments.

“We also want to know where did the Rs 4,141 crore released to the mills between 2014-2018 go? This was revealed in a reply on July 9, 2019, in Parliament. If we get this money, the mills can be revived,” Chakraborty said.