Guwahati: Maram Uddin Choudhury, an employee of the now-defunct Cachar Paper Mill, which is under Assam Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC), passed away on Sunday 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 130.
58-year-old Choudhury, who was a resident of Jankibazar in Assam’s Hailakandi district, passed away around 8-30 am on Sunday while he was on the way to the hospital.
Since September 7, four employees of the paper mills have lost their lives. Sanibor Bangthai of Nagaon Paper Mill died of a heart attack on September 7, Satyabrata Bhattacharjee of Cachar Paper Mill passed away on September 17 due to a cerebral stroke, and Achyot Saikia of Nagaon Paper Mill passed away on October 17.
“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.
ALSO READ: BJP announces names of candidates for Assembly by-polls in Assam
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.
