Nagaon, March 3: Production at the Assam Hills Small-Scale Industries Corporation Ltd's packaged water plant at Haflong is slated to begin a week after it is inaugurated on March 12.

The chief of the corporation, Dhansing Lakthe, today told The Telegraph that steps have been taken to produce a maximum of 18,000 litres of water per day and that will be marketed in the hill district.

The water plant, in the Boro Haflong area, in Haflong, district headquarters of Dima Hasao district, is the second big project of the corporation in the district. Work on the Rs 1.2-crore project was started with financial assistance from Dispur last year.

Lakthe today said NC Hills Autonomous Council chief executive member Debolal Gorlosa will inaugurate the project on March 12.

"That will be followed by trial production. After a week we hope the packaged drinking water of the corporation will reach the Dima Hasao market," Lakthe said.

A food processing centre was launched in 1974 with 15 permanent employees to help the orange and pineapple growers of the district. The unit stopped production in the wake of a financial crisis in 2000 but was restarted with new infrastructure in 2014.

The corporation is an organisation under the hills area development department of the state government, floated in 1970 to usher in industrialisation in the two hill districts of Assam - Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao.

With more than six units in different parts of the two hill districts, the corporation was once among the leading organisations under the state government, with 75 employees.

"Our sugarcane industries stopped permanently and it will be very tough to revive these units. However, we have been looking at sugarcane and rubber cultivation in the last few years," Lakthe said.

He said the cooperation has three water plants at present and daily production reaches 50,000 litres.

"All our products, with the brand name Kanch, is popular among the people of the two hill districts," Didya Sing Tokbi, a corporation employee serving in Diphu.