An employee of a defunct paper mill, earlier owned by Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC), in Assam's Nagaon district died due to illness after failing to pay for his treatment, its union informed on Tuesday.

The deceased has been identified as Koliman Basaumatary, a resident of Jagiroad in Morigaon district. He reportedly died due to a cardiac arrest on Monday evening. He was 57.

Its union, the Joint Action Committee of Recognized Unions (JACRU), said that Basumatary had been suffering from serious heart ailments but failed to afford desired treatment due to financial crisis owing to non-payment of salary.

With his death, the death toll of the paper mill employees has reached 105. While the Cachar unit stopped functioning in October 2015, the Nagaon mill in Jagiroad became defunct in March 2017.

Although the Assam government had agreed to a relief package of Rs 375 crore for the rescue of the workers, funds have not been released yet, JACRU said.

It further informed that as many as 20 employees have died since the formation of the new government led by Himanta Biswa Sarma, however, nothing was done for them.