GUWAHATI: Another ailing employee of the now-defunct Cachar Paper Mill, which is under Assam Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC), passed away recently due to cardiac arrest.
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 126.
The deceased, identified as Kameswar Patnaik, hailed from Bandari Layout in Nizampet, Telangana. The 63-year-old has been suffering from prostate cancer for the past few years.
Last month, 61-year-old Manik Uddin Laskar, a resident of Algapur in Assam’s Hailakandi district, died after battling cancer for the past two years.
“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 92 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.
