The hundred-year-old biscuits manufacturing company, Britannia Industries closed down its factory unit at Taratala on Monday, at a time the state government is trying to woo investments in West Bengal.

A section of employees of the company said that they found a suspension of work notice issued by the management at the gate of the Taratala unit this morning when they came to join duty as usual.

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The management has not yet officially made any statement so far in connection with its decision to close down the unit.

A section of the employees said that the company has given them compensation between Rs 13-22 lakh to permanent staff, depending on their service period. There are around 120 permanent employees in the unit, they said.

But none of the contractual workers is yet to get any compensation from the company, it’s learnt.

Some of the contractual employees alleged that the company has not yet given anything as a financial compensation package to them. The Taratala factory has around 250 contractual employees.

Sources in the company said that the closure of the Taratala unit will not affect productions.

Britannia Industries is one of the biscuits manufacturing giants in the country and West Bengal is its third largest market across states.

The company was established in 1892 by a group of British businessmen with an initial investment of Rs 300.

Mumbai-based textile giant Nusli Wadia of Bombay Dyeing took control of the company from Britannia’s then chairman Rajan Pillai with the help of French food giant Danone in 1983.

In 2009, Wadia group became the largest shareholder in the company after acquiring a 25 per cent stake, owned by the Danone group.

Besides West Bengal, the company has three other biscuits manufacturing plants in eastern states Bihar, Odisha and Assam.