Butwal Textile shuts down, workers agitate over dues

13 Sep '08

2 min read

Butwal Textile Industry (BTI), an 18 year old synthetic, cotton and acrylic yarn producing factory with an 80 percent Government stake, has shuttered operations for the past six to seven months.

There is still uncertainty as to whether the Butwal fiber industry would restore operations since the factory has been pretty frequent in pulling down shutters even in its early years of establishment.

The most concerning issue was that of the dispute between the management and the employees. While the general manager of the factory claimed that the workers had already been paid their salary, workers' union charged that the management of the Butwal factory had given full payment to the contract workers but the permanent workers' 10 months salary had been unpaid.

Although, a meeting to end the deadlock was held between the factory owners and workers in Butwal some two months back, it did not come up with any plausible outcomes. A high-level committee was also set up to do away with the negative aspects in the factory to smoothen its operations.

An official from the factory informed Fibre2fashion that “nearly 400 workers were rendered jobless without pay due to stagnant production. However, since a new Government has been formed, a decision has been taken to form a committee that would take upon itself the charge to restart the factory. It will take another one and a half month for the unit to come back into operation. It is also expected that the central authorities would lend monetary support as the problem of working capital has taken its worse form”.

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