Digital Desk: The Joint Action Committee of Recognized Unions of the Nagaon and Cachar Paper Mills (JACRU) has urged people to speak out in support of the employees of the two paper mills.
A statement released by JACRU read, “With the death of Manindra Chandra Das, a Cachar Paper Mill employee, the death toll among the two paper mills’ employees has reached exactly 100 since their closure.”
Meanwhile, JACRU president Ananda Bordoloi and general secretary Manobendra Chakraborty said that as the government has not paid their salaries for the past 61 months, the workers who are still alive are spending days with excruciating anguish, stress, and trauma as they have lost all hope to live life with human dignity.
Further, the statement stated, “In a welfare state like India, 100 people died prematurely, four of whom committed suicide under various circumstances owing to non-payment of wages for the past 61 months. As the Owner and Administrator of the Industries, the Government of India stays a mute spectator, letting the workers to die.”
JACRU leaders asserted that the Narendra Modi government has consistently pledged to resurrect the two paper factories. On the insistence of chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, an agreement for a relief package for the two paper mill workers arrived on September 28, 2021; however, it is not executed until now.
Further, they added that during the nine years between 2014 and 2022, both the Central and State governments worked together as a ‘Double Engine Government,’ but 85 paper mill workers died during the tenures of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister and Sarbananda Sonowal as chief minister of Assam. Another 15 have died so far during Himanta Biswa Sarma’s tenure.
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