Adamjee Jute Mill

History

Jute, the golden fiber of Bangladesh, was one of the ancient forms of art. Since ancient times
people in Asia and Africa used jute leaves as food, whereas jute stems as weaving fabric.
During the era of the Mughal emperor Akbar, in 1590, the book of Ain-e-Akbari by Abul
Fazal mentions that the impoverished people of India used to wear clothes made of jute. In
the 17th century, the British East India Company came to India for trading. In the 18th
century, the British noticed that jute fibers could be used to make cloth, and realizing how
low the price of raw jute was, they started exporting jute to England. When a portion of raw
jute reached Scotland’s Dundee, the businessmen found a way to weave clothes from the jute
fiber at a reasonable cost. The industry in Dundee was flourishing & evolving based on the
raw jute of the Indian Subcontinent. In 1838, the first mill of Dundee was set up & gradually
new mills were seen to rise there. As a result, the raw fiber in a large volume was exported to
Dundee from the Indian subcontinent. The jute production rate was less due to the big
number of women working in the Dundee’s mill. 

Comparatively, labor is cheaper in India & in 1855 with the support of Indian businessmen,
the Acland Mill, the first Jute Mill of India was set up in Rishara on the bank of the Hugli
river of Kolkata. There was a huge yield of jute due to the fertile land in the Bengal basin.
During that time, lots of jute mills were established centering Kolkata. Therefore, a skilled
workforce from Dundee came to the city of Kolkata & took the responsibility of
management. Finding the labor & raw material at a convenient price, the Jute mill in Kolkata
made several types of jute products. Hence, Dundee’s jute industry lost its market to Bengal.
India before its division from the Indian subcontinent reached the world’s top in exporting
jute & jute products. This industry thrived in Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, after the
partition of India in 1947 as the major portion of raw fiber for the Jute Mill of undivided
Bangla was produced in Bangladesh.

Seeing the endless possibilities of jute, the rich business groups of Pakistan came to Dhaka,
Narayanganj & surrounding regions to set up the jute mills. As a consequence, in 1951, the
Bawa Jute Mills Limited, Adamjee Jute Mills, and Victory Jute Products Limited were
established. Among them, Bawa Jute Mills Limited was the first jute mill in Bangladesh.
According to Jugantar, Adamjee Jute Mill started production on 12 December 1951 with an
investment of Tk 5 crore with 1700 hessian and 1000 seeking looms. The jute mill also set up
3,300 looms in the factories. Fulfilling the demand of the country, several jute products of
Adamjee Jute Mill like bags, sacks & carpets, etc. were exported to China, India, Canada,
America, Thailand & many other countries of Europe. The Adamjee Jute Mill was also
famous as the Dundee of East. Surrounding the jute mill on both sides of Shitalakhya:
Siddhirganj, Bandar & Sonargaon, a huge population started living there. The jute mill was
making a profit to great extent before the liberation war of Bangladesh. The Bangladesh
government, after the end of the liberation war, took control of Pakistan-led jute mills. In
1974, Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation was established to nationalize & control the 82
private jute mills including Adamjee. Since then, these jute mills were going through severe
mismanagement. During the ’70s, the use of polyethylene as an alternative to the jute bag
was increasing worldwide, therefore, the use of jute started diminishing. Since the ‘80s, the
jute mill was ceaselessly incurring losses & at the end of the ‘90s, there were 3,000 looms in
the mill. Among them, 1,200 looms were nonfunctional. During that time, the production of
the mill was 59,615 metric tons. There were 2,076 employees, other staff & 16,443 workers.
Facing loss continuously, on 30th June 2002, Adamjee, the world’s largest jute mill, was
closed. The amount of loss during the closure was 1,200 crore BDT and approximately
25,000 employees and workers were working in the mill. 

Apart from Adamjee, all other jute mills under the supervision of BJMC had been incurring
losses continuously after the liberation war. According to a report of Prothom Alo, in the last
decade, the government jute mills made a profit of 17 crore BDT. On the other hand, the state
treasury incurred a huge loss of 10,000 crore BDT to bear the expenses of these jute mills.

Why Failed?

Bangladesh was well-known worldwide for its high-quality jute cultivation. Moreover, the
name & fame of Adamjee was all across the globe for producing jute products. Hence, before
the war, the mill was making profit each year. It raises a question of why this Adamjee jute
mill under the supervision of BJMC did not make profit & got closed. 

Poor Management

One of the salient reasons behind the closure of Adamjee Jute Mill is mismanagement. After
taking the responsibility of running the mills BJMC did not able to lead the management
properly. Among the mills, Adamjee Jute Mill had the most number of workers. There was a
bottomless pit of corruption due to poor management in Adamjee Jute Mill. Due to nepotism
& corruption, unnecessarily a lot of unskilled employees got appointed. Controlling too many
workers & staffs was an arduous task. The tendency of being absent & having irregularities in
the work made the efficiency of the Adamjee Jute Mill deteriorate. Besides corruption in
hiring, there was thievery all around the mill. Dishonest workers & staffs sold the pieces of
machinery of the mill in secret. This badly hampered the mechanical operation of the mill.
The trade union’s gradual agitation & strike hindered the production activities of the mill. As
a consequence, neither the jute mill was able to fulfill the clients’ demand for volume nor
they could meet the deadline. Therefore foreign orders got canceled. 

Quality Drop

The quality of the jute product got reduced due to the low-level work of many unskilled
workers appointed through corruption. Low-quality jute was bought in the mill because of
corruption & fraud. Besides, the jute farmers never got the right price of jute. As a result, the
quality of the jute products of Admajee was low & the foreign clients slowly started losing
confidence. 

Competition

When the local mills in Bangladesh were losing the orders due to massive corruption & poor
management, India was making progress with their jute industry. Although the quality of the
jute cultivated in Bangladesh was better than that of India’s. The Indian Jute Industry & mills
were regular in production & hence all the orders for Bangladesh were shifting to India.
Bangladesh did not evolve that much & incur losses in this sector. On the other hand, such
speedy growth of India made put them in the top position in the jute industry. Adamjee Jute
Mill, the largest jute mill in the world went through a huge loss. 
Lack of Innovation

Lack of innovation was another reason behind the closure of the Adamjee Jute Mill.
According to Statista, in 2019, Bangladesh became the second in the world for producing 1.6
million metric tons of jute. The amount of jute production in India was over 1.7 million.
Another report of Statista said that Bangladesh was the top exporter by exporting jute in
tantamount to $107 million whereas India exported jute approximately $13 million. That
means the jute industry of Bangladesh was export-oriented and India & China focused on
producing jute products. Bangladesh was producing jute products using the old technological
machines of the British reign. With time, Bangladesh did not bring any innovation in
producing jute products. Hence, in the world market, the demand for jute products of
Bangladesh was declining. Both India & China were progressing faster due to technological
innovation & the varieties of products. Therefore, the government jute mills along with the
Adamjee got shut down.

Adamjee EPZ

After the closure of Adamjee Jute Mill, on the land of 245.12 acres, Adamjee EPZ was built.
The number of plots of this EPZ is 229. The area of each plot is 200 square meters. On 6th
March 2006, the EPZ was officially launched. Since the inauguration, 48 industries in
association with local & foreign investment have been established. Among them, the number
of local, foreign & joint industries are 11, 27 & 10 respectively. These factories are producing
a variety of fully exportable products like garments, zippers, cartons, hangers, levels, tags,
shoes, sweaters, textiles, socks, jewelry, polyester & dyeings, etc. After the inception of
Adamjee EPZ, in the first FY, $40 million was invested & $230,000 worth of products were
exported. The number of workers was 1,625. With the flow of time, both the amount of
investment & export was increased. According to BEPZA in 2018-2019, the total number of
investments in Adamjee EPZ was $521.93 million. At the same time, the amount of export
was $4483.67 million. The total number of workers & employees was 62,200. The Jute was
completely a bio-degradable & eco-friendly fiber. It comes from the earth, helps the earth &
mixes with the earth once its life span ends. The demand for jute & jute products has
increased worldwide to a great extent. Therefore, local jute mills need to be modernized &
technology-friendly. A lot of issues like corruption, nepotism & poor management & the
appointment of unskilled workers must be stopped. Because of these factors, Adamjee Jute
Mill got closed.