Al Amin :
Thousands of workers of the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) are passing their days in immense hardship as they have lost income due to closure of state-owned jute mills.
The laid off workers were supposed to get their dues by September this year. But the authorities concerned are yet to clear their dues and thus their woes worsen further.
The government shut down all 25 state-owned jute mills operated by BJMC rendering over 2800 officials and 25,000 workers jobless for whom the mills were the only source of livelihood for years.
BJMC incurred a cumulative loss of Tk 10,674 crore from 1972 until 2018-19 prompting the government to take the decision, official sources said.
After closures of public jute mills, rumors run high that state-owned sugar mills under the Bangladesh Food & Sugar Industries Corporation (BFSIC) are going to embrace the same fate amid continual operating losses.
The officials and the workers of the closed jute mills were supposed to be trained and “given priority” in recruitment to the mills when those are “modernised” and “reopened” under Public-Private Partnerships, or some other joint ventures, or through leasing out to third parties.
But, none of the laid off officials or workers is recruited or affiliated with the other offices as per the government announcement. Even, nobody knows how long it will take to reappoint them.
Finding no other way, many of them are now searching other jobs to bear their family expenditure, BJMC officials said.
The officials, who have already completed 25 years in job, have been given golden handshake. Some young officials will be affiliated with other government corporations or offices, said an official.
Sources in the Ministry of Textiles and Jute, however, said two committees have been formed-one for reappointment of the officials and another for finding way to reopen the mills-to resolve the crisis.
Abul Kalam Azad, Additional Secretary of the Textiles and Jute Ministry, said, “As per the recommendation of the committee, we will take measures to reopen the mill sooner and the officers will be reappointed there.”
The rest of the officers will be affiliated with other corporations or government offices, he added.
“The decision of closing down the state-owned jute mills was not prudent. This was not a right time to take such a decision,” Dr Khandaker Golam Moazzem, Research Director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
He also pointed that the government has shut down all public jute mills at a time when the demand for jute and jute goods are on the rise in the international market. Even shipments from the sector continue to rise despite the global economic slowdown caused by Covid-19 pandemic.
When asked, Golam Moazzem said that the government earlier took an initiative to run the state-owned mills under the PPP arrangement, but the project failed.
Exports of jute and jute goods posted 39.29 per cent growth to $307.55 million during July-September period of the current fiscal year (2020-21).
Besides, exports of raw jute registered 23.61 growth to $41.15 million during the period under review.
Expressing utter frustration over the government decision, Mozammel Haq Khan, a former secretary-general of Jute Mill Workers League in Khulna, alleged that workers have been made scapegoats for ineffective management, leadership and corruption by the BJMC.
“The state-owned jute mills incurred losses due to corrupt syndicate (inside the BJMC) that looted public money year after year but didn’t modernize factories, train workers and buy raw jute at low prices during the high season. This allowed hoarders to make big money for bribes. Now workers are being made scapegoats,” he said.
Mozammel Haq Khan, 65, who worked at Eastern Jute Mills from 1974 to 2014, also alleged that the decision of shutting down the public jute mills was an international conspiracy backed by the World Bank and a section of Bangladeshi officials to weaken the state industry to prioritize private enterprises.
Running the mills under the PPP initiative would be futile as such initiative has not been fruitful in the past, said former finance advisor to the caretaker government Mirza Azizul Islam.
He said the government can consider joint venture or foreign direct investment (FDI) to turn the loss-making jute mills into profitable concern under new ownership patterns. Experienced entrepreneurs should be picked up in forming joint ventures and mills should go for producing diversified jute goods as their demands are on the rise in the international market.
Bangladesh’s government, on June 28, announced that 25 jute mills under the BJMC would shut down, 24,886 workers would be sent to retirement under a ‘golden handshake’ scheme and their dues would be paid in full by September this year.
