The gate of the West Dinajpur Spinning Mills on the outskirts of Raiganj. Picture by Mehedi Hedaytullah

The West Dinajpur Spinning Mill was once the largest industrial unit in North Dinajpur.

Almost always shut since 2010, its workers now come to the factory only to chat.

The mill, which carries the name of the old district that existed in north Bengal till 1992, was set up by the state government in the seventies on the outskirts of Raiganj.

Only for a few months till June 2011 that the mill was open.

The 516 permanent and 179 temporary workers have been paid no salaries for the past four months. The salaries are irregular at best.

Production at the mill is zero.

In many ways, the mill’s story is the story of the rest of Bengal, where industry has fizzled out in the last two decades because of labour problems.

There is a handful of spinning mills in South Dinajpur, but they, too, have seen a steady decline through the years.

The industry grew in the area because cotton was grown there. But now the cotton has to be bought from elsewhere.

The West Dinajpur Spinning Mill was conceived when Siddhartha Shankar Ray was chief minister.

The then state small-scale and cottage industry minister Jainal Abedin had decided to set up the mill on a 33.59-acre plot at Bogram on the outskirts of Raiganj in the erstwhile West Dinajpur district and had acquired the land.

In March 1986, the then chief minister Jyoti Basu formally inaugurated the mill that had been financed by the Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI) and the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), followed by commencement of construction.

For two decades the mill functioned well. But after 2004, because of management and labour problems and non-payment of dues to cotton suppliers, it began to incur losses.

The losses led to delay in wage payments, leaving the workers disgruntled who often resorted to strikes. The mill would be closed down intermittently.

Raw material worth crores of rupees charred in three incidents of fire led to more losses. The mill closed down in June 2010. It reopened after a couple of months and was operational till June 2011.

In June, it closed down again and has been closed since.

According to the employees, in its heyday, around 70 different types of yarns were manufactured at the mill every day, with the regular production being around 8,000kg of yarn.

“In the early years, the monthly earnings were as high as Rs 2 crore. The yarns, produced at the mill, were sent to other states of the country and even exported to the neighbouring countries of Nepal and Myanmar,” says an official.

The mill would also help the handloom industry to grow in Bengal.

“Later, as the troubles began, the variety of yarns came down to 40. The number decreased through the years.”

The state government is still paying the wages to the workers. But for how long, they wonder.

They want the government to resume production at the mill and revive the unit.

Not everyone is hopeful about the mill reopening, including Deepa Das Munshi of the Congress, Raiganj MP and junior urban development minister at the Centre.

“The decline started during the Left regime. The present government, without any resources to revive it, want to close it down,” she says.

“During Left Front rule, the mill was somehow running but the current government has completely closed it down. We want the state to take an initiative and restart the mill,” says Narayan Chandra Deb, a worker and secretary of the Citu-backed employees’ union.

As the new government came to power, the former small and cottage industries minister Manas Bhunia made some effort to restart the mill but could not succeed. Mohit Sengupta, the Congress MLA of Raiganj, was made chairman of the mill.

“We were optimistic that the mill would restart functioning but as the Trinamul walked out of the central government, Bhunia resigned and Sengupta left the post of chairman. Now we have Chopra MLA Hamidul Rehman of the Trinamul as the chairman. We want him to take an initiative to save the mill as well as the workers,” a senior worker said.

Anil Sarkar, leader of the Intuc-backed employees’ union, said the rise in cost of raw materials, old machinery and incompetent management have led to the downfall.

Inability to pay for the cotton proved costly, sources said.

Cotton has to be bought from elsewhere for the mills in the district now as its cultivation has stopped. Previously, it was grown in the Chopra, Raiganj, Islampur and Kaliaganj areas till the 80s.

Since then growing cotton has not been economically viable.

Sarkar’s colleague Subrata Das, who represents the Trinamul-supported trade union of the unit, however, blamed the Left Front.

“The entire responsibility is with the Left Front government. The government had left crores of rupees due to companies which used to supply cotton to the mill. The new government is taking some important steps,” Das said.

According to mill officials, a corpus of around Rs 100 crore is required to revive the mill.

“Discussions are on at various levels of the state government to reopen the mill and resume production. The final decision is yet to be taken,” says managing director Bijoykumar Mukherjee.

The chairman, Chopra MLA Rehman, says the state government is seriously thinking about the project.

The workers just want an end to uncertainty.