GUWAHATI: Another ailing employee of the now-defunct Cachar Paper Mill, which is under Assam Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC), passed away on Monday.
With the recent incident, the total death toll of employees in the two paper mills—Nagaon Paper Mill and Cachar Paper Mill—has risen to 125.
61-year-old Manik Uddin Laskar, a resident of Algapur in Assam’s Hailakandi district, died after battling cancer for the past two years. He passed away at his residence around 5.30 am on Monday.
“Every worker is passing days with unbearable suffering, stress, and trauma. The workers have lost all hope to live life with dignity as they are unable to meet the expenses of medical treatment with their salaries unpaid for the past 91 months,” said Manobendra Chakraborty, president of the Joint Action Committee of Recognised Unions (JACRU) of the Nagaon and Cachar paper mills.
He said though the Assam government had announced humanitarian aid to save lives, the irreparable damages caused earlier are now resulting in deaths one after another.
“The responsibilities of all such deaths rest on the government, which failed to resolve the crisis till now,” Chakraborty said.
The Jagiroad and Panchgram paper mills have been non-operational since October 2017 and March 2015 respectively, and are under liquidation proceedings due to the non-clearance of dues to financial and operational creditors. The total land area of both mills is over 1,550 acres.
On March 28, 2022, the Assam government took over the assets of the two closed paper mills of Hindustan Paper Corporation Limited (HPCL) located at Jagiroad in Morigaon district and Panchgram in Hailakandi district after long and sustained efforts, dialogues, and meetings.
Earlier on July 6, another employee of Cachar Paper Mill Abdul Manik, who was a resident of Panchgram, Hailakandi district, lost his life due to a cardiac attack.
