'Dunlop's Sahagunj unit to reopen on October 31'

Kolkata, Oct 16: After nearly six years of closure, former tyre major Dunlop India Limited's (DIL) Sahagunj factory in West Bengal will re-open on October 31, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee announced here today ending all speculations in this respect.

Announcing this the Chief minister confirmed that he himself would be present during the re-opening ceremony at the DIL's Sahagunj factory in neighbouring Hooghly distirct setting off the process to roll out tyres from the factory premises once again after the long gap.

Incidentally, the Ambattur unit of DIL in Tamil Nadu has already commenced production on August 27 bringing in a ray of hope among the thousands of remaining employees of the age-old factories.

The Sahagunj factory would initially produce cross-ply tyres including off-the-road (OTR) tyres and industrial products.

Kolkata based Ruia Group, which had taken over the majority stake of the DIL from the Jumbo Group in 2005, has already spent Rs 150 crore from its internal accruals towards modernisation of both of its facilities and meeting past liabilities.

Though the decision to re-open the Sahaganj unit of DIL was announced by Comapny Chairman Pawan Kumar Ruia long ago, the exact date for the much awaited function was announced by the Chief minister himself here today after holding a series of meetings with Mr Ruia on the issue and taking avery active interest in the re opening of the factory.

Though before closure the Sahaganj factory had employed about 5,000 employees, during the intervening period many of them had either left, opted for other means of livelihood or even commited suicide in desperation, making the reopening of DIL one of the toughest challenge for both the new managemwent as well as the state government.

During the October 31 proposed reopening after two months of cleaning and maintenance work, about 1500 employees would rejoin the factory creating a new history of sorts in terms of state's industrial rejuvination programme.

UNI