After the suspension of sugarcane crushing operation of 2020-2021 some eight and a half months ago, about 600 labourers and officials of the Pabna Sugar Mills have been transferred to other places. The salaries of those staff are pending for two months while the stock of sugar at the mills has also been exhausted.
According to sources the authorities of Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation on December-2 last year sent a letter to the Managing Director of the Mills to suspend the sugarcane crushing operation of the mills on the plea of recovering the loss. The same letters were also issued to the MDs of five more sugar mills including in Kushtia Sugar Mills, Panchagarh Sugar Mills, Shyampur Sugar Mills, Rangpur Sugar Mills and Setabganj Sugar Mills.
According to sources a total of 1006 officials, employees and labourers are working in Pabna Sugar Mills. Of them, 589 have been transferred to various mills and factories under BSFIC. Among the transferred staff, 23 are officers, 171 are permanent staff, 99 are seasonal labourers, 23 securities (outsourcing) and three contractual sweepers.
It is learnt as the decision of halting the crushing sugar cane was announced by the mills authorities, hundreds of workers and employees of the mills started agitation by blocking Pabna highway in front of the mill gate. They demanded to withdraw the decision of halting the crushing of sugar cane and to continue normal activities of the mills.
However, after eight and a half months of halting the operation of the mills, no action has so far been taken from the mills authorities to resume operation of the mills. Some staff of the mills, however, mentioned that by transferring the officials, employees and labourers of the mills, the government is rather permanently closing the operation of the mills.
Sajedul Islam Shahin, President of CBA of the Mills admitted that many staff of the mills has been transferred and the rest of the staff will also be transferred. He demanded the reopening of the mills after renovating all units of the mills.
Sanat Kumar Saha, Chairman of BSFIC informed about the closure of operation of the mills that crushing of sugar cane will remain suspended in six mills. The sugar cane produced by the farmers in the mill zone areas and nearby of those six mills will be purchased by the government and those will be sent to other mills for crushing.
He further mentioned none of the staff of the mills will be sacked. He said, “As the first step of decreasing the loss, six sugar mills have been closed. He added, Japan and Korea are interested in investing Tk 5000 crore for the development of our sugar mills. But, the issue is being delayed due to the Corona pandemic.”
Pabna Sugar Mills was established on 60 acres of land in Ishwardi in 1992. The mills started commercial production of sugar from 1998-'99 FY. The mills have been incurring loss from the beginning of its operation and so far the mills incurred some Tk 400 crore (4,000 million) loss.
Saif Uddin, Managing Director of Pabna Sugar Mills said the crushing of sugarcane in the mills remained suspended for eight and a half months. Already 590 staff of the mills out of 1,006 has been transferred to various mills of the country. However, he failed to answer whether the mills will restart operation after the renovation.