The jute industry’s bonhomie with the West Bengal government, set off in the wake of the Northbrook jute mill incident, is now threatening to be a short-lived one. The industry is saying that the West Bengal government is not buying jute bags as promised.
Against the plea of Indian Jute Mills Association (the apex industry body) that the State government pack 100 per cent of its rice output in gunny bags, the industry is now facing a situation where a very small portion of the State’s annual rice output is being packed in gunny bags.
Among the country’s top rice producers, West Bengal grows some 150 lakh tonnes of rice annually. The jute industry estimates that 4.5 lakh bales of B Twill bags would be required for packing foodgrains.
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“Procurement is far short of this,” IJMA chairman Raghavendra Gupta told
At the June 26 meeting between the industry and four Ministers of the Mamata Banerjee government, it was decided that the Centre would be moved jointly by the industry and the State government to include items like potatoes.
Now, 90 per cent of the foodgrains and 20 per cent of sugar are mandated to be packaged in gunny bags. In the face of stiff competition from the synthetic packaging materials, such executive orders have become the mainstay of this traditional industry.
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However, little progress is made in approaching the Union Textile Ministry (which governs the jute sector) and the West Bengal government has also not issued any fiat for packing potatoes in jute bags.
The State produces some 9.5 million tonnes of potato and 15 crore pieces of bags would be required for this.
Mr. Gupta said the jute industry is reeling under a demand crisis and four mills are now under a lock-out. Nearly one lakh persons are out of work in the industry due to production cutbacks.
It may be mentioned that the June 15 incident at Northbrook jute mills near here was sparked by rumours of production rollbacks and angry workers had lynched a chief executive officer of the plant.