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Kathmandu Wednesday November 21, 2001 Marga 06, 2058.
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Biratnagar Jute Mills closed
down
Post Report
BIRATNAGAR, Nov 20 - Biratnagar Jute Mills
(BJM), the biggest jute mill of the country plagued by frequent strikes, came to a
complete closure Monday as it could not buy raw materials.
The Mills used to buy raw materials worth Rs 12
million a month on average, but lately it could not buy raw materials due to a lack of
fund as its earning went down as a result of partial operation and frequent strikes.
The Mills was partially operating till Sunday as
workers obstructed its operation citing not getting their overdue salary. Over 1,800
blue-collar and 160 white-collar employees of the mills had been staging strikes since a
month demanding their overdue pay, Dashain allowance and medical allowance.
The strike was broken after the Chief District
Officer held a meeting with the mill management, employees on condition of paying their
due amounts before Tihar, but as the Mills failed to pay their due pay, they again went on
partial strikes.
Nirmal Kumar Byas, a local businessman, had
taken the management of the Mills in contract paying Rs 9.5 million per year to the
government. The government has 46 per cent stake in the ailing jute mills.
Byas in a written application to the Ministry of
Industry, Commerce and Supplies on Tuesday has accused the local administration and board
of director of the Mills of not extending any cooperation while a group of workers created
uproar and sold goods and manhandled some employees.
He has also requested the government to create
an environment so that a tripartite meeting could be held and the problem could be solved.
He says that those workers created chaos even
before the deadline of payment of their salaries. He has claimed compensation from the
board of directors and the government for the damage caused by the striking workers during
the period as the board of directors and the local administration remained indifferent to
the incident.
The Mills, which used to operate 24 hours a day,
had been running only for 16 hours a day for the past few months due to a lack of raw
materials. The closure of the Mills would affect about 2,000 employees and their
dependents.
Besides, the closure of the Mills will also
affect the revenue that Biratnagar Customs office generates from the import of the raw
materials. Likewise, the workers are used by the local businessmen to pass goods from the
customs carrying them on handbags, which the porter say are brought for domestic
consumption.
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