BackNITI Aayog seals the fate of state-owned jute enterprise
The NITI Aayog has recommended that loss-making National Jute Manufacturers be shut, along with its subsidiary Birds Jute and Exports
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Kolkata: Its fate has not been sealed yet, but the Union textile ministry has pretty much given up on National Jute Manufacturers Corp. Ltd (NJMC), a terminally sick state-owned enterprise that controls six jute mills, all currently shut.
The NITI Aayog has recommended that the perennially loss-making NJMC be shut, along with its subsidiary Birds Jute and Exports Ltd, rejecting the textile ministry’s proposal that at least one mill be kept operational.
Not many will shed tears over it. Several attempts to revive it have failed, and over the past 10 years, NJMC has laid off almost all its permanent employees. It opens one of its mills in the northern suburbs of Kolkata every now and then and runs it with workers hired on short-term contracts.
Still, the textile ministry wanted one mill to be kept alive so that it could manufacture value-added jute products, said key officials, asking not to be named. NJMC chairman Kushal Bhaduri declined to comment.
The Union government is now almost the lone buyer of jute bags. They are used to package foodgrains under the Jute Packaging Materials Act—a 1987 law. The Act is described by some officials as a “crutch" to support the livelihood of at least 4 million people dependent on the fibre.
The production capacity of jute bags is at least twice the government’s annual procurement, the officials said, adding that the private sector has shown no initiative to diversify. Jute mill owners refuse to produce anything other than bags, they said.
Jute mill owners blame recalcitrant workers for their inability to diversify. One of them said he had installed new machines in one of his mills but workers are refusing to use them. “They just refuse to do anything new," this person said, asking not to be named.
A cabinet minister in West Bengal said chief minister Mamata Banerjee will take a stand on this, more so because the state had previously given sales tax incentives for NJMC to stay afloat.
“The next step will be further dilution of the jute packaging Act, which has very serious implications for West Bengal’s economy," this person said, asking not to be named.
Dilip Ghosh, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s state president in West Bengal, said acquiring sick jute mills in the first place was a wrong decision, and that there was no alternative to shutting NJMC. The mills were never viable, he said.
“I am confident that the government will compensate those who are to be laid off," Ghosh said.
Workers who still used to get hired on contracts at the Khardah unit of NJMC are perhaps the worst hit. “We have always been jute mill workers... we have no other skills," said Joydeb Patra, a laid-off worker of the unit, which alone had some 7,000 workers at one point.
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