Two papers mills of the Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC) had once united Assam’s culturally disparate Brahmaputra and Barak Valleys industrially. The unity continued in the death of these mills since 2017, but Mandate 2021 appears to have deepened the divide between the valleys.
The Nagaon Paper Mill, about 70 km east of Guwahati and the Cachar Paper Mill, about 30 km from Barak Valley’s main town Silchar, were not just two of Asia’s largest paper plants. They were the fulcrums around which two towns — Jagiroad in Morigaon district and Panchgram in Hailakandi district — grew and prospered.
Jagiroad has been more fortunate because of connectivity; it reaps other benefits of being located on Asian Highway 1. Panchgram has been reduced almost to a ghost town.
But the 2,400 employees of both have been suffering equally without pay since January 2017 (Cachar Mill) and March 2017 (Nagaon Mill). So have some 4 lakh people who have been directly and indirectly been dependent on the two mills.
More than 80 employees have died too, many of them without money for treatment, some due to starvation.
The Joint Action Committee of Recognised Unions (JACRU) of the two mills have been unhappy with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP for failing to live up to their 2016 promise — to infuse fresh life into the two mills.
“Contrary to the PM’s call for atmanirbhar, India has been importing paper from China, Indonesia, Bangladesh at high prices. If that were not enough, the government siphoned off ₹4,141-crore from 2014-2018 meant for the mills besides ₹107 crore of the employees’ provident fund money,” JAKRU president Manobendra Chakraborty told The Hindu.
‘Didn’t spare the dying’
What has angered the employees of the Cachar Mill is the BJP’s manifesto promising to revive only the Nagaon Mill and clear the arrears of the employees there. “They have not even spared the dying employees of two sick mills by playing on the divide between the two valleys,” he said.
The Nagaon Mill employees are not amused too. “The Nagaon and Cachar mills were commissioned in 1985 and 1988 and prospered together. We will not let one unit be revived and the other killed, although we know the BJP does not mean to help the Nagaon Mill,” JACRU’s Nagaon Mill leader Ananda Bordoloi said.
The BJP’s Algapur candidate Moon Swarnakar has vowed to fight for the Cachar Mill’s revival if voted. The JACRU says the promise to wrest the seat from the All India United Democratic Front’s Nijam Uddin Choudhury sounds hollow.
The BJP’s Jagiroad MLA Pijush Hazarika has also promised the Nagaon Mill’s revival to keep Congress rival Swapan Kumar Mandal at bay. Both constituencies go to the polls in the second phase on April 1.
Letter to Rahul
On March 30, the JACRU leaders sent a letter to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi pledging their support to the Mahajot or grand alliance, whose constituents include three Left Front parties. The reason: the Kerala government’s step to run the Kottayam Paper Mill of Hindustan Newsprint Limited, a subsidiary of HPC.
