In 2005, it was the Great Eastern Hotel, a sick state PSU that the government was desperately trying to offload. Four years on, it is the turn of Basumati Corporation Ltd, another moribund state PSU.

In case of Great Eastern, the CPM’s labour wing CITU, stood in the way of the chief minister’s reform agenda and mounted a colossal pressure. But they lost, and the state government sold the 165-year-old heritage hotel.

This time too, CITU along with other unions crossed swords with the chief minister, opposing the closure of the 114-year-old heritage organisation, which published the vernacular daily Basumati.

Though the state government has offered ERS proposals to its 212 employees, not a single worker has accepted it.

But the government once again stands firm, saying that in no circumstances it would budge from its path of disinvestment. The PSU has accumulated a loss of Rs 80 crore.

On November 18, 2007, the government had put up the notice for closure of the unit, with an offer of ERS to all its 212 employees. The last date for accepting the ERS is February 28, 2009.

“After February 28, salaries to the employees will be stopped,” said Dilip Chakrabarty, Principal Secretary, Department of Information and Culture, which runs the corporation. Incidentally, the department is under Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

The CITU, which saw red following the move, said it would fight tooth and nail to stop the closure of the unit. It has teamed up with Trinamool Congress and Pragatishil Indira Congress of Somen Mitra in this mission. “What the government is doing is most arbitrary and unjust,” said Mihir Chakrabarty, vice-president, Basumati Corporation Employees Union affiliated with the CITU. It could have run the organisation with at least 80-90 employees and given ERS to the rest.

The government, he said, has not talked to the unions before taking the decision of closure. It has not implemented the Manasina Wage Board Award, which was declared in 2000.

“We are ashamed because this government is our government but they are not protecting the interests of the workers. They are whipping us but we won’t tolerate that,” he added.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who has already held rallies to express solidarity with the workers, declared on Sunday that if the government goes ahead with the closure, she would sit on a dharna at the Basumati premises.

State CITU leadership has taken up the cudgels for the employees: “We will tell the state government to consider the case sympathetically,” Kali Ghosh, CITU state secretary, told The Indian Express.

Basumati Corporation is one of the 26 sick state PSUs that are going to be restructured in the second phase of reforms being effected with financial help from DFID of the British Government.