Kids of unpaid Assam staff given BPL-like aide to study
Children of officers and workers of an Assam paper mill have been temporarily bailed out by a BPL-like assistance so that their studies can continue.
Nagaon Paper Mill (NPM) in central Assam’s Jagiroad, about 75km east of Guwahati, stopped production in March. Its sister plant, Cachar Paper Mill (CPM) in southern Assam’s Panchgram, went out of production in 2015.
The mills, each with an installed capacity of 1 lakh metric tonnes per annum, are wholly owned by the Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC), a central public sector undertaking that has two subsidiaries with state government stakes — the longdead Tuli paper mill in Nagaland and the thriving Hindustan Newsprint Limited in Kerala.
Salaries of 750 CPM employees stopped coming in October last year. Two months later, the as many employees of NPM joined their Panchgram counterparts.
“Because of liabilities, people who were drawing Rs 50,000-Rs 1,00,000 were suddenly penniless. Two of our colleagues who hadn’t saved enough for such a situation committed suicide in May,” said Atanu Mahanta, vice-president of NPM Officers and Supervisors Association. “Ten others are psychologically scarred after receiving police notice for loan default. We desperately need Rs 900 crore of the proposed revival package of Rs 1,500 crore for HPC to restart the mills before things get worse,” Mahanta added.
Assam’s BJP-led government proposed a revival package to the Union ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises, state industries minister Chandra Mohan Patowary had said in the last assembly session.
Mahanta is among those dozens of families whose children had to give up seats in institutes across the country because they were unable to pay admission and course fees.
But those pursuing medical, engineering and other degree courses in Assam had the option to be categorised as BPL (or below poverty line), the employees said.
Local BJP MLA Pijush Hazarika tries to explain the difference. “It is not exactly BPL. Our government introduced Suhit scheme for the underprivileged last year, under which an MLA gets Rs 50 lakh to spend for the needy in health and education. After approval from the chief minister and finance minister, I provided Rs 7.5 lakh for 70 wards of Nagaon Paper Mill employees to pursue higher studies. It was the least I could do for an iconic mill that sustained Jagiroad for so many years,” the MLA said.
Hazarika believes the paper mills will be profitable from the first day if revived. “The demand is high, and it won’t take the mills much time to script a turnaround with a good team at the helm.”
A combination of poor management, irregular supply of fuel due to National Green Tribunal’s ban on coal mining, low availability of raw materials and shutdown of a vital chemical unit by the pollution control board are considered as reasons that dealt a severe blow to Assam’s central sector PSU paper mills.