112-yr-old paint plant shut in Bengal, 99th since Mamata took over

. July 17: After Jessop, Dunlop and Hindmotor, Southeast Asia's oldest paint manufacturer Shalimar Paints stopped functioning at its Howrah plant on Wednesday. With this, 99 industrial units have been shut in the last three years, since Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) came to power in the state.

Over one-hundred and fifty people lost their jobs as a result of suspension of work in the Shalimar plant. Shalimar had stated operations in Howrah way back in 1902 and its paints were used to sheath structures like the Rashtrapati Bhavan and Howrah Bridge. The authorities said it was out of funds to reconstruct the plant in a way to procure no-objection certificates from the government. The plant was damaged in a fire in March.

Shalimar said they didn't have money to set up the plant in a new way

Shalimar, owned by Girish Jhunjhunwala and Ratan Jindal, has two plants in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh and will open another unit in Chennai soon. Two other plants that have recently shut their units in West Bengal, namely, Nokia-Siemens and Hindmotor, are also set to open new plants in Tamil Nadu.

Union leaders at the closing unit in Shalimar, however, accused the management of conspiring to shut the unit. While the left union said the fire of March 12 was a deliberate one, the TMC union said it was done purposely to embarrass the state government.

Shalimar authorities said they would restart the plant in a couple of months after bringing together skilled workers.

Oneindia News