Limestone traders under the banner of the Shella Area Exporters’ Union and Association today protested against the Lafarge Umiam Mining Private Ltd for breaching its 2006 agreement by selling Shella-Nongtrai mines sourced limestone in the Bangladesh market.
Protest was triggered after Lafarge reportedly commenced a project in Bangladesh by sourcing out crushed limestone from Shella area. As per the agreement, Lafarge can use limestone and the conveyor belt only to feed its cement plant at Chhatak in Bangladesh.
However, a new project adopted by the company in January this year, has angered limestone traders who felt cheated by such a move, stating that this will have adverse effect on limestone trade which is a source of income for most families in Shella.
Adviser of the association, Roy Kupar Synrem said the project will not only affect traders but transporters, shopkeepers and the rest 70 to 80 per cent of the people, who are directly or indirectly dependent on limestone as source of livelihood and economic development.
In Bangladesh too, traders and labourers had recently staged a protest accusing illegal sale of limestone by Lafarge in open market. They said that the Bangladesh government incurred a huge revenue loss due to illegal open market sale of imported raw materials. It was also alleged that the company had imported raw materials from India for factory use but it was selling those in open market illegally.
Synrem further said that while Lafarge through an agreement with the Shella dorbar was allowed transporting crushed limestone from the mining site to the cement plant at Chhatak, its recent project is not welcomed and hence it should immediately withdraw it.
He said that the core committee of the association would intensify its protest if the multinational company does not heed to their demand.
