HINDUSTAN PAPER CORPORATION LIMITED
The current and ex-employees of this organization take pride in the fact
that it is one of the "Miniratna Category-I" public sector
undertaking (PSU) in India. By definition, it means a firm that "has made
profits continuously for the last three years or earned a net profit of Rs. 30
crore or more in one of the three years".
The reason for blogging about this is because my father has been an
employee of this organization for more than 30 years now and he along with
almost 2000 current employees are in deep-deep trouble. So, the reason which
got me to get back to this blog and post something here after almost a year, is
that Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPCL) is in the middle of a serious crisis
where a lot of lives are at stake. The two paper mills - Nagaon Paper Mill and
Cachar Paper Mill are not operational and employees are not getting their
salaries. Cachar Paper Mill was last operational in October whilst Nagaon Paper
Mill is shutdown since February. All employees have been crying for their
salaries for months as they struggle to run their households, pay their EMIs,
pay their children's education fees, get medical assistance and thousands of
other basic tasks. Money drives every basic thing in the world that we
currently live in. So now that we have established the fact, that not getting
salary regularly is a huge problem for every middle-class man, we can talk
about the plight of the industry.
1. The mills are not
operational. The reason being, there is no money to pay the vendors and bring
in the raw-material. The situation arose because of mismanagement/corruption at
top and mid-level and CBI investigations are on. This in turn led to losses and
drying up of the reserve funds and eventually the mill did not have any money
to pay the dues of the vendors and hence they stopped supplying the
raw-materials, which ultimately meant ZERO production.
2. When the downfall
started, and company started incurring intermittent losses, employees stopped
getting the extra-benefits of a typical PSU and everybody thought it’s just
normal cost-cutting that happens everywhere. The maintenance activities started
happening less regularly, occasional late salary disbursements, renovations
stopped and many similar things followed.
3. Then slowly there
came a time, when the mills had to wait for the raw-materials to arrive, run
for a month or two, produce the paper and then wait for it to get sold off in
the market and use that money for further purchase of raw-materials.
Ultimately, when the mills could no longer sustain and couldn't bear its own
cost of running with the sales it was making, the mills stopped and couldn't
pay the salary dues of its employees.
4. Currently, around
2000 employees have not received their salaries for the past 7 months and the
employees are asking for a revival package from the Government to make the
mills operational and bring it to a profitable position.
5. The families of these
employees are facing a serious crisis as they are struggling to run their
households without any salary. Children of most of the employees are studying,
somebody has a house loan on his/her name, somebody bought a car on loan, and
somebody has dependent parents.
6. Then the location of
these mills, Panchgram and Jagiroad are still very remote and the livelihood of
the people living here is through these paper mills. Some work as contractors,
some as temporary labour, some are shopkeepers, fruit & vegetable vendors,
milkmen, gardeners, servants are also struggling. The whole economy of these
two areas is still dependent in a huge way on these two mills and its
employees.
There have been protests going on, by the labour-union, by the
employees, by the "children of HPC" but I feel these protests will
die out over time as till now their voices have not fallen into the ears of
neither the "Heavy Industry Ministry", not the central government.
All we have received till now is an occasional nod by the Ministers saying that
we will definitely revive the two mills. As I went through the news related to
this issue over the past one year, I came to know that a revival strategy is
being prepared to not just make the mills operational but profitable in a
short-period of time, the revival package is under a vetting process, Assam
state government is talking with the Center. The way things are moving, it
could take another 6-7 months before anything substantial happens. This could
completely break-down a lot of employees and their families. We need to act now
and hence I thought of listing down a few reasons as to what may have gone
wrong:
1. There are multiple
agendas. A section of the organization (management) is asking for a revival
package from the government (1350 crores to be somewhere near precise, although
last year September the state government issued a statement with a figure of
800 crores). Then there is a section who is protesting for the employee
salaries to be disbursed immediately which has been due for months now. Then,
there are people who are local residents of Jagiroad and Panchgram area who
have been affected indirectly as their source of income is through the living
expenditures of the employees of HPCL. So, all in all the raised voices of
these separate sections are to some extent cancelling out echoes of each other
thus reducing the overall impact of the protests.
2. There is weak/less
significant leadership in terms of bringing this protest in the eye of the
public. For any protest to be successful, it has to come into the eyes of the
public. With, coverage only on the local newspapers and news channels, hardly
anybody has noticed the current fate of the HPCL. This has been the story of
North-East India for the past 70 years, never really getting the attention of
Mainland India or so to say, the Parliament located at heart of our nation's
capital. There is a need to make this issue a national one, to get every
concerned minister's undivided attention. Let us get Arnab Goswami to conduct a
debate on his channel Republic TV, at least let us try to get this issue on one
of the National level TV Channels.
3. God helps only those
who help themselves- Let us stage a demonstration where we do not just sit on a
strike and do nothing, but actually do something about our own situation. Let
us unite every one, bring in as much bamboo as we can and start the production
even if it is on a very minute scale. I don't even know if it is possible or
not, only my dad and his colleagues know whether it is feasible or not. Let us
put in the hard-work, demonstrate the strength of the HPCL family to everyone,
may be it will grab the attention of the nation that could give a strong push
to our agenda. While people try to run the mill, others can contribute by
cleaning the residential colonies which have undergone tremendous damage due to
lack of funds.
4. Somebody needs to
find a source directly to either Our Chief Minister, respected Sri Sarbananda
Sonowal, or our Heavy Industry Ministers Sri Anant G Geete & Sri Babul
Supriyo (who might be a good friend of Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Zubin Garg or may
be Shaan). We need people who can skip the regular process and get in touch
directly with these people of influence.
5. Let’s resolve
internal conflicts and internal politics. As long as we are wasting our energy
in internal politics or looking for personal gains, nobody is going to benefit
out of it. A united front, a united voice, a united display of anger and
disappointment is the need of the hour.
I want to use this platform
to reach out to everybody and tell them the struggle that these 2000
individuals and their families are currently undergoing and my parents are one
of them. I take great pride in being part of the HPCL family, which took care
of my childhood, enabled my father to take care of my college education and
played a huge part in making me the man I am today and I know a lot of my
school-mates share the same feeling. I cannot and will not just sit back and
watch it die. I want to reach out to my fellow school-mates to join in, every
present and past member of the HPCL family (may not even be impacted at all by
this), every single person who thinks that everybody should get what’s
rightfully theirs. Let us join hands, move the Government to get their
undivided attention, and help out these 2000 odd families along with preserving
our glorious past.
