Soft coke industry owners protest, seek to restart business

A delegation of 18 soft coke industry owners of Nirsa area of Dhanbad led by former Nirsa MLA, Arup Chatterjee met the Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner Uma Shankar Singh on Monday. They sought the deputy commissioner’s intervention for relaunching of their units, lying closed for more than eight months.

The industry owners claimed that the local police at Nirsa is not allowing them to operate their respective units and also threatens them. The police also implicated one factory owner in a false case when he tried to relaunch his unit.

Notably, soft coke is primarily used in hotels, restaurants for cooking purposes in ovens.

Talking to The Telegraph Online after meeting with the deputy commissioner, Chatterjee said, “The DC after meeting us expressed surprise over the restriction of permission for operating the factories and instructed the Additional District Magistrate (Law and Order) Chandan Kumar to conduct an inquiry into the issue and take appropriate action, accordingly.”

“Even as the government has allowed the opening of all industrial units from April 20 without making any distinction on the types of industry but the local police at Nirsa led by officer-in-charge of Nirsa police station, Subhash Kumar is preventing the opening of soft coke industry owners from opening their units,” informed Kumar.