Kulti, May 2: He spent the best 26 years of his life here but Sanjay Bhaduri has deci-ded to sever his ties and go to his daughter in Delhi.

A former senior technician at IISCO’s Kulti works, Bhaduri has now stopped expecting that the plant will reopen. Without a job for three years, he can neither trust the CPM nor the Congress, which had been claiming that they were pressuring the Centre to revive the plant.

The lifeline snapped, the town is in a shambles. Power and water are scarce. “The plant used to provide both to Kulti town. Now the captive power plant and the waterworks are being maintained by a group of retainers. Electricity supply is erratic and water uncertain,” said Bhaduri.

When Steel Authority of India took over IISCO’s Burnpur unit last year, there was an air of optimism in Kulti.

But early this month, the Centre decided to sell off the 130-year-old factory about 250 km from Calcutta. Four private companies have already submitted expressions of interest for it.

But for Bhaduri, 52, there is little to cheer. “How will I benefit if the plant is privatised? I’ve been forced to take VRS. Will the new management return our jobs?”

Among the 3,000-odd employees here, only 32 did not accept the voluntary retirement scheme.

Bhaduri married off his daughter Swati to a Delhi businessman five years ago. “She wants me to leave Kulti and start a small business with her in Delhi,” he said.

Among about 30 employees who stayed back after the plant closed, Bhaduri lives in a single-storey house desperately in need of a coat of plaster and paint. “Some of us are still hanging around hoping against hope,” he said.

The number of voters in Kulti has come down by over 25,000 to 158,591 in the past five years because of the exodus of which Bhaduri would soon be a part. “Most of those who left were former employees of the Kulti works,” said S.M. Jalal, the Congress candidate.

Unlike Bhaduri, Dipak Rudra, 48, was brought up in Kulti and owns a store. The IISCO closure has not hit him any less hard. Business has slumped. “I want to sell off my house and settle on the outskirts of Calcutta,” he said.

But there are no takers for his house. He has tried no end but “no one’s interested” to come here any more. “Who would want to?” he asked. “There’s little water to drink, no power and the crime graph is rising. The town that had once grown around the Kulti works is almost dead. We don’t venture out after evening.”