GUWAHATI: HPC Paper Mills Revival Action Committee, a conglomeration of organisations and political parties, has welcomed the CBI investigation into the cause of suspension of operations at Cachar Paper Mill under Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC).
A team from the central agency visited the paper mill at Panchgram on Monday and started investigation.
Production in Cachar Paper Mill at Panchgram has been suspended since October 20, 2015 while operations at Nagaon Paper Mill at Jagiroad came to a halt on March 13, 2017. “We welcome the CBI investigation under the supervision of Supreme Court. This inquiry by CBI has been a long pending demand by us. A petition was submitted before Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi on November 22, 2018, praying for the probe into the cause of suspension and the delay to restart operations,” Manobendra Chakraborty, chief convenor of the newly-formed committee, told The Shillong Times on Tuesday.
After suspension of production in the government-owned paper mills, the entire paper market has been controlled by private corporate players, the committee claimed.“The rate of paper has gone up in the market from Rs 47,000 to Rs 52,000 per metric tonne to Rs 97,000 to Rs 1.07lakh per metric tonne. The consumption of paper has increased in India substantially, and by this rate, the demand will go up 53 per cent by 2020. But supply has not increased, triggering a price hike,” Chakraborty said.
He questioned that when such a crisis was prevalent in the market prompting the government to import paper from China and Korea to meet the crisis by draining our foreign currency, why it is not starting operations in its own mills.
The two mills have absorbed over 3000 people directly and over 2lakh people indirectly.
