# Notebook

Innocent Face

SNS | March 9, 2015 9:35 am

A colleague writes: As a personnel manager who was associated with the jute industry in West Bengal, Amitava Ghosh witnessed the transition of trade unions from a responsible movement to the militant – on occasion murderous – variety. Having done his graduation and Master&’s in Economics from Allahabad University in the early Fifties, he obtained the Diploma in Social Welfare (DSW) from the Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, Calcutta. He served as personnel officer in Bird Company&’s jute mills during its heyday and was known as the “innocent face” of what was in the Fifties and Sixties a booming industry, indeed the bedrock of the managing agency system.

That appellation, endorsed by the Brits, “stuck” till his final hours till 2 March 2015 when he passed away at the age of 82. After a stint as Chief Personnel Officer in Bird&’s Process Engineering Division (PED), off VIP Road, he switched over to McLeod as the Chief Personnel Manager of the company&’s Meghna jute mill.

As an upright officer who stuck to the certitudes of the workplace, Mr Ghosh on occasion had to countenance the threats of restive jute workers. He left the organized sector in 1976 and was till the age of 80 a consultant/adviser in personnel management to several leading companies, both in the public and private sectors. He would often lament that his health had declined only after he had discontinued “corporate practice and travelling by the Metro and mini”. A keen cricket/football enthusiast, he was once a member of the East Bengal Club. He was above all a great human being, the only son of Janakijiban Ghosh, who was associate editor of Amrita Bazar Patrika and Editor of Northern India Patrika,Allahabad.