Demand for reopening of Wimco; memo submitted to BJP State president

DHUBRI: A delegation from Dhubri led by an ardent and active social worker, Dipankar Mazumdar met Assam State BJP president Ranjit Kumar Dass at Dhubri Circuit House recently and handed over a memorandum urging him to reopen the historic Western India Match Company (Wimco).

Dass interacted with the delegation and assured them to take up the matter at the appropriate level and to do the needful. The Dhubri district unit BJP president, Dr Debamoy Sanyal, who was also present there informed the State party president that he had already talked to the head of the ITC management at Kolkata and laid stress on opening of the industrial unit. Dr Sanyal also appraised him that he had personally met ITC Chief Executive Officer Chittaranjan Dhar at Kolkata and had a detail discussion on opening this industrial site.

"ITC is contemplating to set up a cluster of industrial unit under one shade. But there has been change in the situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown. Neither any planning nor any visible step has been taken so far towards its opening," Dr Sanyal added.

Later, Dass asked Dhubri Deputy Commissioner, Anant Lal Gyani to prepare a report on the latest information on Wimco, including present status of land and submit the same to him in 10 days.

Dipankar Mazumdar, who took up the Wimco issue on social media, received support from people of all walks of life recently. Talking to The Sentinel, Mazumdar said that Western Assam was sans any industry worth the name since the last century. But during the British era, a match factory was set up at Dhubri by a Swedish Company named as Assam Match Company (Amco) in 1925. It was the lone industry in Western Assam till Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemical Limited (BRPL), which is now known as Bongaigaon Refinery (BGR), came into being in the 70s, Mazumdar added. Mazumdar said that due to change of ownership of Amco, it came to be known as Western India Match Company (Wimco) when Jatia Group of Company took over all the five match factories in India.

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