Assam Congress urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene and stop the auctioning of the two closed paper mills of government- run Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC) and ensure revival of the factories.
The HPC's Cachar unit in Panchgram has been non-operational since October 2015, while the Nagaon mill in Jagiroad stopped operating from March 2017.
No salary was paid to the staff of Cachar and Nagaon units since January and March of 2017 respectively.
In a letter to the prime minister, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora urged him to recall the auction notice issued by the official liquidator on June one, and also advise and assist the state government in reviving the two mills.
A copy of the letter was sent to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma as well.
The letter said that the Prime Minister had made repeated commitments during the election campaigns of 2016, 2019 and 2021 that the two paper mills would be revived by giving a special economic package.
Other senior BJP leaders, including Sarma and his predecessor Sarbananda Sonowal, had also assured the people of the state that the two paper mills would be revised at any cost as it is the "lifeline of the people of Brahmaputra and Barak Valley", the Rajya Sabha MP said.
The employees of these two paper mills, their family members, bamboo growers and suppliers, unemployed youths, small businessmen, and the people of the state, in general, expect that the government will not take the hard decision to sell the two paper mills built on over 2000 acre of land to private parties, it read.
"I urge you to explore a comprehensive plan of a revival of the two paper mills, prior to its sale to a third party in the same way the Kerala government took over Hindustan Newsprint Limited, a subsidiary of the HPC," Bora said.
