Just a few months after JK Jute Mills was reopened, Elgin Mill, Kanpur’s oldest textile mill, is also set for a revival due to increasing pressure on the government-owned mills to follow suit prior to the coming general elections.
The city’s closed mills have been on the political agenda for the past one decade and the central government-owned National Textile Corporation (NTC) was unable to fulfil the revival promises made by the political parties. This time, however, the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) has approved a Rs. 193-crore revival package for the mill.
Elgin-2 Mill, which has also been approved by the Board of Restructuring of Public Sector Enterprises (BRPSE) and the textile ministry for the purpose.
A special cabinet committee constituted for the purpose will review the proposal within a week. According to BIC General Manager (finance) DS Mishra, the proposal is expected to be approved by next month.
“The work for overhauling and upgrading the existing plant machinery will begin once the proposal is passed, apart from procuring Rs 15 crore by selling looms in the plant,” he said. Mishra also said that the mill’s machinery will be upgraded after six months of full capacity production.
Members of the Kanpur Trade Union Council (KTUC) recently staged a demonstration at the Elgin Mill gate, demanding the revival at the earliest.
The protesting workers alleged that it had been more than five years since the government assured that the mill would be reopened. “Five years back, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured the mill workers of restarting the Elgin Mill. Five years later, our position is still the same,” said Ramji Tripathi, state president of the Textile Labour Union.
KTUC has, meanwhile, requested Union minister of State and an MP from Kanpur, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, to reopen the Kanpur textile mills by investing Rs 20 crore, as recommended by the Northern India Textile Research Association last year.