The crisis in the jute industry in West Bengal is making Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders from the State jittery. With nearly a dozen of jute mills closed and thousands of workers out of work, BJP MP Arjun Singh on Wednesday threatened to launch a movement against the Jute Commissioner Office (JCO) over the unavailability of raw material and the price fixed on raw jute.
Mr. Singh, who represents Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency, where more than 20 jute mills are located, said that he on December 13 last year along with BJP MP Locket Chatterjee met the JCO officials as well as the Union Textile Minister Piyush Goyal but the demands to raise the price of raw jute had fallen on deaf ears.
Mr. Singh said that if the crisis was not averted, then 10 more mills will close and thousands of workers of the State will be out of work. The BJP MP accused that the Jute Commissioner was trying to act on behalf of the plastic lobby and trying to choke the jute industry that provided livelihood to two crore people, including mill workers and jute farmers. The MP said that he had tried to impress upon Union Textile Minister Piyush Goyal and had written a letter to him but said that he feels that the Union Minister was being “misguided”.
