NTC unions want their textile mills to be restarted; say privatise units if needed

Mumbai, May 28 (PTI) Unions representing workers from 22 mills of the National Textile Corporation (NTC) have demanded that the units, which were shut down five years ago, be restarted, stressing that their employees are facing hardship.

The mills can also be privatised or run as government-private ventures, said Shiv Sena (UBT) member of the legislative council Sachin Ahir, who heads a National Co-ordination Action Committee of 22 NTC mills spread across the country.

The mills that were closed in 2020, citing the COVID outbreak, are yet to resume operations, Ahir told PTI on Wednesday. “As a result, over 20,000 workers and their families are facing extreme hardship,” he said.

Five of these units are in Maharashtra, including “Tata, Indu No. 5, Podar and Digvijay mills in Mumbai and Barshi Textile and Finlay Textile in Achalpur", he said.

The Sena (UBT) leader said 2,000-3,000 workers are employed with the five mills in Maharashtra.

Trade unions from the nine states where these NTC mills are located have come together to form the National Coordination Action Committee to press for the resumption of operations, said Ahir.

“We have been demanding that these mills be restarted and the workers be paid full salaries. Owing to our protests, the government had agreed to provide half of the salaries, but even that payment has been pending for the past eight months,” he said.

Additionally, more than Rs 2 crore of pending bonus is yet to be released to the workers over the last four years, Ahir said.

He said the government can also consider privatising the mills or operating them as government-private joint ventures. The mills have assets worth over Rs 5,000 crore, he said.

“These mills once produced cloth that could be used in government hospitals and institutions, ensuring their survival. Had the Centre transferred the Transferable Development Rights funds generated from Mumbai’s NTC mill to the state, operations could have resumed,” Ahir said.

The Rashtriya Mill Mazdoor Sangh and other unions are also taking legal recourse, he said.

Amid heavy rain in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra, the expensive machinery in these mills is getting damaged due to a lack of maintenance, he claimed.

“Workers are compelled to believe that this is a deliberate move by the management to close down the mills permanently. If they had any intention to restart the mills, pre-monsoon safety measures would have been taken,” He said.

The National Textile Corporation Limited, a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Textiles in India, was established to manage the affairs of sick textile undertakings taken over by the government. PTI MR NR