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Three closed jute mills reopen soon

Suman Saha
The government is set to reopen three closed jute mills this month in a bid to revitalise the country's jute industry.
The three mills — Daulatpur Jute Mills in Khulna, Karnaphuli Jute Mills and Forat-Karnaphuli Carpet Factory in Chittagong — will be operated under the state-run Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC).
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to inaugurate the Daulatpur Mills on 24 January and the Karnaphuli Jute and Forat-Karnaphuli mills on January 26.
“The government wants to revive the lost glory of golden fibre," said Major General Humayun Khaled,
chairman of BJMC.
The full-scale operations of these mills will create jobs for about 4,000 people directly and enhance BJMC's total production capacity annually to 250,000 tonnes from the existing230,000tonnes, he said.
Daulatpur Jute Mills, which has been producing jute products on a test basis since April last year, will now go into commercial production.
Established in 1953 on 23 acres at Khalishpur, Daulatpur Jute Mills started commercial production in 1955 and was nationalised in 1965.
It was closed down by the BNP-led four-party alliance government on December 7,2002 due to a severe financial crisis.
On July 18, 2007, the then care-
taker government shut down Karnaphuli Jute Mills and Forat-Karnaphuli Carpet Factory and leased them out to a private company, Saad Musa Group, in2008.
BJMC has already cancelled the lease and taken over the two mills, according to the BJMC chairman.
“BJMC has already prepared a project for modernisation and expansion of jute mills,” Khaled added.
Under the project, the BJMC has a plan to replace old machineries, repair old factory buildings and construct new ones, replace cables and so on.
BJMC has a total of 24 jute mills, of which 18 are now operational.
Reopening the closed jute mills is an electoral pledge of the present government.
Earlier, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reopened People’s Jute Mills (renamed Khalishpur Jute Mills) on March 5,2011, while Quami Jute Mills (renamed National Jute Mills) on April 9 of the same year.
The state-run Jute Mills Corporation produced 1.76 lakh tonnes of jute products in fiscal 2011-12, up from the previous year's 1.66 lakh tonnes, according to BJMC data.
It also exported jute products worth Tk 1,058.14 crore in fiscal 2011-12, up from the Tk 943.42 crore