Jobs of 68 labourers terminated at Cachar Paper Mill

SILCHAR, Aug 16: At least 68 contractual labourers were prevented from entering the Panchgram Cachar Paper Mill (CPM) where they had been working for the last twenty years. The labourers belonging to the HR & EF department of the HPC paper mill were told that their services had already been terminated. This incident created a lot of tension in the HPC campus as the terminated workers refused to go away and demonstrated in front of the gate. Meanwhile, Directors of Hindustan Paper Corporation Partha Dhar, while speaking to The Sentinel said, ‘‘These labourers are not HPC employees as they were recruited by a contractor.’’ Sources said, contractor Subrata Devwas was served a notice by the paper mill authorities on July 31 that his contract had expired. Dev had reportedly informed that it was not possible for him to accommodate, compensate or rehabilitate the labourers working under him for such a long period.

Meanwhile, the terminated labourers have decided to bring the issue to the notice of the district administration as well as the labour office. In the meantime, Algapur MLA Rahul Roy has convened a meeting of all the 15 MLAs and two MPs of the valley at the CPM guest house tomorrow, to discuss the chronic problem of the mill in procuring raw materials, particularly bamboo and coal. The meeting is importance in the sense that it is the first step by Rahul Roy, who himself was a supplier of coal in the mill, after the defeat of Sontosh Mohan Dev in the last general election. Dev was the Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprise in the Centre and HPC was under his ministry. Dev made his trusted lieutenant Partha Dhar a Director of the HPC and the latter reportedly resorted in clipping the wings of some contractors close to Excise Minister Gautam Roy and his MLA son Rahul. THE SENTINEL