Bihar: With Demolition of Siwan Cotton Mill, Hopes of Workers Dashed

The spinning mill in Bihar’s Siwan district, lying dyfunctional for the past two decades, was finally demolished in the midst of the assembly election.

Having worked at the unit for a decade-and-a-half, many workers who kept visiting the mill for two decades after it closed down. Since it was never formally closed down, they had hoped that operations would start again. But now they know that possibility has been ruled out.

In the run-up to the elections, the incumbent JD(U) government had announced that an engineering college would be established at the site. The tender for the demolition was floated in June for Rs 9.13 lakh and the demolition began in spite of the workers' protests. In June the cotton mill was demolished in the presence of heavy police deployment to contain the protests.

The labourers employed at the Siwan mill have been agitating for a long time. In June, they staged a sit-in protest for several days.

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Lal Mohammad, secretary of the Siwan Cooperative Spinning Mill Employees Union, says, “The foundation stone of the engineering college was hastily laid here last month. We are not opposed to an engineering college. We only wanted another small industry to be set up, if the spinning mill is unable to function. If not, all the labourers should be accommodated in other industries. But no one listened to us. For the last two decades, we have not been paid our wages, nor granted the provident fund.”

The construction of the mill began in 1982 and was completed by 1986. The same year, 86 labourers were recruited. Lal Mohammad was one of them and was hired as an engine operator. A resident of Mohiuddinpur village, which is located close to the mill, Mohammed says that workers from Darauli, Mairwa, Andar, Maharajganj, Gopalganj and other places worked at the Siwan mill.

In 1995, 208 workers were appointed at once. Later, 95 more labourers were hired. At the time it started becoming dysfunctional – around 2000 – 537 labourers were employed.

The mill functioned smoothly for a decade and a half, before things started going awry. Lal Mohammad says bureaucratic mismanagement was responsible for the mill closing down.

He says the process of getting a malfunctioning machine repaired was an ordeal, with the file being sent to Patna from Siwan. The whole process took a long time, he says. The matter was worsened by the fact that the mill never had a permanent managing director. Due to mismanagement, sometimes raw material was also not available at the mill on time, Lohammad says.

Before its closure, the mill was run with the help of some private entrepreneurs for nearly a decade. It finally ceased operations in late 2000.

Though officers and employees engaged in the management of the mill left, labourers continued to mark their attendance every day. They had hoped that the mill would resume operations someday.

'Ruined the lives of many'

Lal Mohammad says that the closure of the mill has ruined the lives of the labourers employed there. Many poor labourers now make a living by pulling rickshaws and carts in Siwan. A few of them have been forced into begging, while others are working in petrol pumps.

According to him, the government owes the labourers wages worth Rs 8 lakh each. "If the government could not run the mill, they should have paid the wages at least. The workers wouldn’t have to face these unfortunate circumstances," he said.

The mill was granted 15 acres of land. Later, one acre was given to the electricity department. Now, seven acres of the land has been granted to the engineering college. It is yet unclear how the remaining seven acres will be used.

Apart from Siwan, there are two more cooperative spinning mills in Bhagalpur and Madhubani districts of Bihar. Both the mills have also been shut down. In 2013, the government had asked the IL&FS to provide inputs on how to revive the units, but it is now apparent that the government has given up the idea of reviving them.

The spinning mill was set up in Siwan as the district had a huge number of weavers who used to prepare sheets, towels, loincloths, bedsheets, and sarees on handlooms and powerlooms. Cotton was transported from Assam, and after being spun, the yarn would be supplied to the markets in Delhi, Kolkata and Khalilabad in Uttar Pradesh. Due to a steep fall in demand for woven fabric, the weavers were forced to take up other jobs. This led to a drop in the demand for yarn. Resultantly, the yarn produced by the mill was not sold causing the yarn mill to incur heavy losses.

Besides, the mill never operated to its full potential. Lal Mohammad says that 52 rim-frames were installed at the mill. If it had operated on full capacity, 1,500 labourers could have been employed. But the mill always ran on 26 rim-frames. Owing to this, the production never crossed half the mill's capacity.

“The cotton mill has been laid waste,” says Lal Mohammad. “The equipment and the infrastructure are worth more than Rs 4 crore. They needed Rs 3 crore to run the mill, but the Nitish Kumar government did not allocate the amount. We witnessed it being pulled down. They think that Siwan will prosper if an engineering college is built here. Let us wait and watch.”

“The cotton mill has not been declared closed till date,” he adds. “No notice was ever put up that the cotton mill was being closed down due to lack of raw material or dearth of funds. Neither did they grant us retirement nor our dues were cleared. Many workers are on the verge of retirement, while a few others have passed away.”

Lal Mohammad has little hope that a shift in regime in the state is going to change the fate of the mill. However, he is positive about the grand alliance and the announcements made by RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav regarding closed mills. He says that in view of a shortage of factories in Siwan and the issue of migration, the government should seriously consider reviving closed units and setting up new ones.

Translated from the Hindi original by Naushin Rehman.

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