The New Nation - Internet Edition

AT a discussion last week in the city, speakers urged the interim government to drop its plan to lease out eight state-owned jute mills and instead demanded a 'national policy' for revival of the ailing jute industry and recovery of the lost glory of the golden fibre. According to recent media reports, they depicted the picture of how a booming jute industry has been dragged to such a pale situation that the government has to go for leasing out jute mills. It was stated how the state-run Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation because of its growing liabilities earlier closed down four major jute mills as a consequence of the process of ruining jute and the jute industry as a whole since independence.

Held under the auspices of 'People's Commission for Jute and Jute Industry', the meeting's participants rather dubbed the initiative as self-destructive for the economy. International donor agencies were also named at the discussion for imposing various conditions that compel the government from time to time to carry out agenda detrimental to country's economy and industry. It was mentioned that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund had earlier called for privatisation of the jute mills and their gradual closure for incurring heavy losses. Bangladesh last year exported 16 lakh bales of raw jute of which only India imported 10 lakh bales, but this year there is litle demand for raw jute though the local mills still have more than 16 lakh bales of jute in stock. If eight more mills are leased out, at least 45-50 lakh bales of raw jute will remain unsold, which will affect adversely the jute cultivators and others involved in the jute business. Besides, a large workforce will become jobless overnight with litle scope of being provided again anywhere in the already squeezed industrial sector.

The jute and textile mills at different places set up in the 1950s and 1960s are now being closed down as the state-owned jute and textile corporations have proved not competent to run those. Rather, all these top-heavy bodies with bureaucratic tangle suffer from an inertia that must be overcome first The jute mills corporation, on the other hand, hardly can bear any more loss being incurred since the mills were taken over in 1972. The mills closed in the recent past were - 'People's Jute Mills' at Khalispur in Khulna, 'Karnaphuli Jute Mills' and 'Foraat Carpet Mills' at Rangunia in Chitagong and 'Bengal Textile Mills' at Noapara Industrial Town in Jessore. A total of Tk 358 crore was due to be paid to 3,339 workers and employees of the People's Jute Mills alone though no payment - not even their salary - was made before the closure of the mills.