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Kushtia’s glorious Mohini Mill turns abandoned

Published : Tuesday, 9 July, 2019 at 12:00 AM  Count : 2755
PM Serajul Islam
KUSHTIA, July 8: Glorious Mohin Mills of the district,  the 100-year-old infrastructure, which once got reputation for faultless production of some finest fabrics, has now been totally abandoned.
Sources said the government recently leased the mills to the People's Development Services Corporation Ltd (PDSC), a private company to renovate it. The company took over the mills formally which ushered in a hope among the local people.
Debates rose when the company dismantled tools and machineries of the mills to sell those as scrap soon after getting its lease instead of taking initiatives to start it.
Though the company authority claimed to have their rights to sell those, but people of the district do not comply with them in terms of selling tools and machinery.
People, however, foiled such an attempt by the company. They also vowed to resist by any means if necessary. Now the total situation is cloudy.
Meanwhile, people of the district formed 'Mohini Mill Rakhkha Committee' (Committee to Protect Mohini Mill) led by Kushtia Municipality Mayor also former general secretary of district Awami League Anwar Ali.
When contacted, Anwar Ali blamed a group of people who is intending to loot the mills.
They looted the mills earlier, but people will not give them to loot further, he also said.
The committee will launch movement to open the mills through its renovation, he added.
The glorious Mohini Mill, where thousands of men and women worked day and night to produce famous fabrics, came to a halt in 1991 following miserable failure of successive governments to turn it a profitable venture.
Its huge collection of imported tools and machinery are now rusting.
Mohini Mill was set up in 1908 by a nobleman Mohini Mohan Chakrabarty on his own land with only five looms.
The mill's humble beginning soon paid off. In 1912 the number of looms was increased to 203. Ten years later the mills had 529 looms with 19,000 shuttles.
According to a record, up to 55,000 yards of fine fabrics were produced everyday at that time with an annual profit of up to 30 crore rupees.
The first ill fortune descended on Mohini Mill in 1965 when a war broke out between Pakistan and India. After the war, the Pakistani military regime branded Mohini Mill an enemy property and forced Mohini Mohan out of the country along with his family members. The regime then delegated the supervision of the mills on the then East Pakistan Industrial Development Service.
When the state mechanism took over, Mohini Mill had 33 acres of land and about 2,000 employees. With a school named after Mohini Mohan, the mill had a playground, a large pond, a market, a medical centre, and 284 single and double room quarters.
Following the independence of Bangladesh, Mohini Mill was nationalised and handed over to Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation (BTMC). The BTMC went into production by indiscriminately appointing 6,000 men and women.
Within two years, mismanagement bore its fruits by inflicting a staggering loss of Tk 12 crore. By 1978 the public exchequer was counting a loss of Tk 18 crore. At the same time, corruption, misappropriation of funds and looting became rampant in and around Mohini Mill.
In 1978 the government took another initiative to save the mills from falling apart. The government set up BMR project taking help from the British government. This time the mill was producing 1,500 bales of cotton thread every day.
In 1982, when losses started rocketing, the government laid off 3,000 employees and shut it down through liquidation. Then the government decided to sell it. Although it was then estimated that the cost of Mohini Mill was Tk 50 crore, but it was sold to a private share holder company at only Tk 25 crore.
Mohini Mill was restarted with a new name, "Shah Makhdum Mill", on January 31, 1985 with only 100 employees. But the private management failed to click, and in 1987 the mill was shut down with 10-month salary unpaid to the employees.
After various attempts, the mill was returned into production on 1989, but again closed down the following year. The private company simply abandoned the mill, having sold a large number of machine tools in connivance with a section of government officials.
In 1990, the government took the mill under its custody and decided to sell it again. A tender was floated in several dailies. But the Sonali Bank sought a court injunction on the sale as the private owner had defaulted with a loan of Tk 10 crore they had borrowed from the bank to start the mill back in 1985.
The court issued a stay order on the sale. All things centring the mill were stopped. In July 1992, in a meeting at Kushtia Circuit House, the then minister Abdul Mannan promised to take all measures to restart the mill.
On October 12, 1993, former prime minister (PM) Khaleda Zia, in a public meeting on Kushtia Government College playground, declared that Mohini Mill would soon be started.
In 2002, the then opposition leader and current PM Sheikh Hasina announced in a meeting at Kushtia that all measures would be taken to restart the mill and create employment opportunities for the local people.
But the paramount leaders of the country have failed to live up to their promises, leaving the ever-promising Mohini Mill and its resources gather rust, dust and parasites.




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