Sans salary, employees of Bilt Paper Mill in distress

Jeypore: The employees of Bilt Paper Mill, Jeypore in Koraput district are in distress as production in the mill has stopped. While the contract employees were shown the door, the regular employees have not received salary since eight months. A high level meeting scheduled today in Bhubaneswar, will be discussing the matter and decide on future course of action.

Talking to OTV, an employee of the organisation, A Ishwar Rao said, "We are facing hardship even to arrange two square meals a day. The wait for salary is not ending."

Another employee Sudarshan Pallei said, "The authorities are assuring us that normalcy will be restored, but after eight months we do not have any hope. It is becoming difficult each passing day.''

Currently there are 546 regular employees in the mill and 750 temporary employees. After the mill shut down its production it had given a proposal to the employees, which was turned down by the employees as well as the labour association. So the mill authorities had announced if their proposal is not accepted, the company will be closed.

Labour leader Pramod Mohanty said, "This proposal of management is not acceptable as the employees will be losers. It will down the morale and they will not be giving their 100 percent.''

Expressing hope that the stalemate will end soon, CGM of Bilt Paper Mill, DP Dhiman said issues will be sorted out soon.  "They are our workforce and we hope they agree to our proposal and support us. Once that is done, we will be able to run the mill,'' he said.