Latest News | Bengal Govt to Support Drive Against Hoarding of Raw Jute
Get latest articles and stories on Latest News at LatestLY. The West Bengal government has assured its support to the Jute Commissioner's Office in its drive against raw jute hoarding which is hampering gunny bag production by mills.
Kolkata, Jan 6 (PTI) The West Bengal government has assured its support to the Jute Commissioner's Office in its drive against raw jute hoarding which is hampering gunny bag production by mills.
"We are in the process of commencing a major drive against hoarding and the state administration will be supporting us," an official of the Jute Commissioner's Office told PTI on Wednesday.
A state government source said that the labour commissioner has written to the Jute Commissioner to prepare an action plan for the drive.
Finding that a section of balers, suppliers and traders are not cooperating in resuming normal supplies of raw jute to mills, the government has decided to provide support to the jute regulator in cracking down hoarders to restore normalcy, the source said.
A few raids had earlier been conducted but that was stopped after balers approached the court against coercive actions.
The jute regulator has been asked by the court to consider allowing extension of time, if applied by the stockists, without taking any coercive action. However, the Jute Commissioner's office will be free to take action after the extension period is over, the court said.
An intervention by the state government had also failed to normalise raw jute supply to the industry.
The group of ministers,headed by West Bengal Industry Minister Amit Mitra, in November urged jute balers to resume normal supply to mills and not to raise the price beyond Rs 6,000 a quintal to ease the crisis in the sector arising out of price rise of raw jute.
"The jute suppliers have kept the price at Rs 5,950 per quintal following an instruction of the state government. But they are not supplying in adequate quantities to us," a senior official of a jute mill said.
In August, the Jute Commissioner's Office had capped the stock holding limit at 1,500 quintal on own or third party account but asked traders on November 6 to bring it down to 500 quintal.
The 500 quintal stock order was issued after the price of the commodity had soared to over Rs 6,000 per quintal as against the MSP (minimum support price) of Rs 4,225.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)