Stop Auction of Nagaon, Cachar Paper Mills: Assam Jatiya Parishad Urges PM Narendra Modi

A CORRESPONDENT

JAGIROAD: The Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) on Wednesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stop the proposed auction of Nagaon and Cachar Paper Mills at Jagiroad and Panchgram respectively.

While addressing a press conference at the Nagaon Paper Mill (NPM) gate here, AJP president Lurinjyoti Gogoi said that the AJP would launch an online petition-cum-signature campaign against the move to sell the paper mills.

"The Prime Minister in his election rallies in Assam had promised to revive the two mills. So we request his immediate intervention to stop such auction," Gogoi said. He also said that Prime Minister Modi, during a poll rally on March 27, 2016, had raised the issue of revival of the mills and the promises were also reflected in the election manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But he said that the BJP-led Central and State governments could not initiate the process for revival of the mills.

"With the shutting down of the two mills, more than 1,200 employees directly and above 4 lakh people indirectly have suffered. So far four employees have committed suicide and 88 died of starvation, as no salary has been paid to the employees since 2017," said Gogoi.

The AJP chief said that the auction notice had shattered the hopes of the employees as they were expecting the BJP government at the Centre and the State to take steps for revival of the paper mills. He also said that it was frustrating to find that a very nominal base price had been fixed even though there were more than 6600 bighas of prime land, besides huge infrastructure in both the locations. Gogoi urged upon Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma to acquire both the mills from the Central Government.

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