Raymond reaches pact with workers over land devt

Ending a ten-month long imbroglio, textile major, Raymond, today entered into an agreement with its workers which allows the company to commercially exploit its over 100-acre plant here for real estate development.

Raymond will be paying a compensation of Rs 302 crore over a period of three years and its workers would get Rs 18-21 lakh each, Maharashtra government's Principal Secretary (Labour), Kavita Gupta, said here.

The truce also paves the way for the textile major to formally foray into the lucrative real estate market.

However, it is not known whether Raymond would be going alone or take some developer onboard to develop the land in the Mumbai suburb, where prices are skyrocketing.

The textile major planned to foray into the realty business by developing residential and commercial complexes on its 125 acre plot of mill land at Thane where nearly 1,885 workers are employed.

However, its plan went haywire as the union refused to accept the compensation offered earlier by the management for shutting down the mill.