IMFA Therubali employees’ union president Pradip Kumar Mishra appealed to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to intervene immediately to save the livelihood of 6,500 employees who fear to lose their job as the plant is heading for a shutdown due to non-supply of raw material from Sukinda and Mahagiri captive mines. As the plant at Therubali is their only source of income to manage their families, children’s education and medical treatments etc, the union requested the Chief Minister to take proactive step.
In a Press release, Mishra said that the mining operations at Sukinda and Mahagiri were closed due to unusual delay in grant of Consent to Operate (CTO) by the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) though IMFA had complied with all the requisite conditions stipulated by the SPCB. In absence of the CTO, the ore from the mines could not be mined and dispatched to the Therubali plant and therefore a shutdown at Therubali in interior Rayagada district was inevitable. In case, the plant is closed which is the first of this kind of industry established in a remote area of Rayagada district during 1961, about 6,500 employees will lose their jobs.