Guwahati, June 20: A biscuit manufacturing unit at Pub-Boragaon in the city was gutted in a blaze that broke out around midnight last night.

The factory, owned by Sunrise Biscuit Company Private Limited, is an outsourced manufacturing unit of Britannia Industries Limited.

A source in the Fire and Emergency Services, Assam, told The Telegraph that they received a call informing them about the fire at 12.15am and it took them 17 hours to completely put out the flames.

"It took us about couple of hours to stop the fire from spreading but we completely doused the flames around 5pm today," the source said.

He said 16 fire tenders were pressed into service. A security guard spotted the flames and raised the alarm. The production unit was closed and there were only security guards and a supervisor as it was a Sunday.

Though the cause of fire and total amount of loss are yet to be assessed, the amount of damage will easily run into several crores of rupees as the production unit was almost destroyed in the blaze.

The source said the fire-fighting equipment# at the factory were not in usable condition for want of maintenance. This factory is the largest production unit of Britannia in the Northeast.