The closed Ashok Paper Mill at Rameshwar Nagar in Darbhanga. Picture by Mohan Mahato

Overcoming threat and hooliganism hurdles, the authorities of Ashok Paper Mill at Rameshwar Nagar are determined to revive the closed unit within three months.

Tired of threats from local hooligans and protests by a former MLA over payment of pending wages to the former employees, the mill officials approached industries minister Renu Kumari, the inspector-general of police, Darbhanga range, R.K. Mishra, deputy inspector-general of police, Sudhanshu Kumar, and district magistrate-cum-collector R. Lakshmanan. Local police hardly extended any help to them.

Scared by the continuous disturbance at work, the mill officials lodged an FIR against Umadhar Prasad Singh, the former RJD MLA of Hayaghat of the district and his accomplices at Ashok Paper Mill police station last week. Singh wanted the mill authorities to pay off the pending wages and other payments to the former employees. The investigating officer of the police station is probing the case.

Following assurance from the district administration and the senior police officers, the mill officials have called former workers to get work done for reviving the unit.

The chairman of Ashok Paper Mill unit, Dharam Godha, told The Telegraph over phone from Calcutta: “The state government has extended all co-operation, except funds, to restart the closed unit. The local police administration failed to take action against the hooligans threatening our officials. So they lodged a case against the former Hayaghat MLA and his aides.”

City superintendent of police Kumar Aikley said: “We had been informed that former MLA Umadhar Prasad Singh and his supporters had organised a meeting on the factory premises and allegedly hurled abuses at the mill officials. A case has been registered in this connection and the investigation is on. We are extending co-operation to the mill officials with respect to security. But they have not informed us about any untoward incident.”

Godha said: “Efforts are on to revamp this unit within three months if the working condition remains conducive and workers are not threatened or disturbed. Once it starts functioning, over 1,000 workers might get jobs and most workers earlier employed in this unit would be absorbed provided they are not on the verge of retirement.”

Spread across 400 acres, Ashok Paper Mill was established in 1957 by the Darbhanga Raj and used to produce newsprint. Later, the governments of Bihar and Assam and Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) owned the company. The mill turned sick in 1988 and its other unit in Jogighopa owned by the Assam Government separated from its parent organisation in 1991. The Rameshwar Nagar unit closed down in 2003.

The state government and IDBI did nothing to revive the unit. Later, the sick unit was taken over by Dharam Godha, a private entrepreneur. On Godha’s initiative, the company is likely to be revived in the next three months.