GUWAHATI, Oct 25 – Shortage of bamboo has affected the functioning of Hindustan Paper Corporation’s (HCP) Cachar Paper Mill in North Cachar Hills. According to HPC authorities, the “precariously low” stock of bamboo is basically due to the failure of the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) to honour its agreement with HPC for supplying bamboo.
As per the agreement signed on October 11, 2006, the NCHAC was to supply 1,80,000 MT of bamboo per year by rail/road to Cachar Paper Mill. However, following a request from the NCHAC, HPC agreed to receive an additional supply of 1,10,000 MT of bamboo by rail/road to Nagaon Paper Mill.
“During the one-year duration from October 11, 2006 to October 10, 2007, the NCHAC supplied 40,553 MT and 54,561 MT to Cachar Paper Mill and Nagaon Paper Mill respectively. In fact, against a commitment to supply 1,00,000 MT by road to Cachar Paper Mill, they did not supply any quantity,” a statement from HPC said.
Maintaining that it did not cancel any bamboo supply order of the NCHAC in June 2007, HPC authorities said that Cachar Paper Mill had rejected a few truckloads of sub-standard quality bamboo, following which the NCHAC filed a writ petition at the Gauhati High Court in January 2007.
“The plea of the NCHAC to the Court was that they had already cut a substantial quantity of bamboo, which they should be allowed to supply. The Court ordered that a committee comprising representatives of HPC and the DFO, NC Hills, visit the site where the felled bamboo were lying, make an estimate thereof and furnish a report to the Court,” HPC authorities said.
“Despite repeated reminders, representatives of the Forest Department of the NCHAC did not go for the inspection and thus did not comply with the order of the High Court. The matter was accordingly reported to the court,” HPC authorities said, adding that the court had never passed an interim order in favour of the NCHAC regarding cancellation of the sub-standard supply by HPC.
The HPC said that it had repeatedly been requesting the NCHAC to honour the agreement and immediately resume supply of bamboo to the mill as per the October 11, 2006 agreement. “The Governor of Assam also held a meeting of HPC and NCHAC officials in August 2007, and expressed his concern over the fact that bamboo felling operations were not done in a proper manner by the NCHAC,” it said.
It may be mentioned that prior to this agreement and before the commissioning of Cachar Paper Mill, a long-term (30 years) agreement was signed between HPC and the NCHAC for supply of 4,00,000 MT of bamboo per year. Though the agreement was valid till December 2012, the NCHAC ordered discontinuance of bamboo harvesting and extraction by HPC and entrusted the work to a private agency. “Since this was not in terms of the agreement, HPC objected to the same and there was a stalemate in respect of supply of bamboo from the NCHAC to Cachar paper Mill,” HPC authorities said.
After this stalemate, the new agreement was worked out following a number of meetings between HPC and the NCHAC.
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