JK Cotton workers to get compensation

The chairman of the Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), AK Goswamy, has given an assurance to the workers of Kanpur-based JK Cotton that in the revival plan of the company a provision will be made for payment to the mill workers as well.

The revival plan of JK Cotton Mill, which was declared a sick company under the Sick Industrial Companies Act (SICA) 1985, in 1991, was passed in 2002. But it did not contain anything for the workers' dues.

On the contrary, according to the scheme, the workers had voluntarily foregone their dues of the lock-out period. Workers had been agitating for the deletion of this part of the revival report.

The assurance was given to the JK workers' leader RK Tewary in a meeting with the chairman. It was also argued that the workers had precedence over financial institutions, banks and other creditors, including the government taxes. In the JK Cotton case, the company had reported in the last hearing that they had already paid 70 per cent of the dues to the financial institutions and banks.