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Nawanshahr Diary

Best & worst of times for cane-crusher pioneers

BEHRAM (NAWANSHAHR): Right opposite Behram railway station, there is a factory — Ram Kishan and sons — is written in bold letters but has fadeed with time just like its fate.

Best & worst of times for cane-crusher pioneers

Som Dutt at his crane crusher factory, the first in the country, at Behram near Banga in Nawanshahar. Tribune Photo: Malkiat Singh



Tribune News Service

Behram (Nawanshahr), September 21

Right opposite Behram railway station, there is a factory — Ram Kishan and sons — is written in bold letters but has fadeed with time just like its fate.

Exactly 137 years ago, Ram Kishan ‘Sian’, a resident of Chak Bila Village of Nawanshahr, thought something different and manufactured the nation’s first ‘Belna’ (cane crusher).

He established a unit at his village Chak Bilga in 1880 after which he shifted the unit opposite Behram railway station in 1914 and the family started a successful cane crushing industry there. It was only here in Behram in the country where ‘Belnas’ used to be manufactured and the items had worldwide demand for the product.

A visit to Behram’s famous family revealed a completely different picture. Before even entering the factory, one gets a fair idea that the factory is old enough, with its impressive old designer architecture. But now, it is without any life.

Enter the factory, and the owner Som Dutt is seen taking a nap, while his wife is doing small chores in the same room. They have made their small home inside the factory itself. On seeing a journalist, he gets up, comes to his small office where the portrait of his great-grandfather, Ram Kishan, is lying and shares the journey from the golden days to that of suffering.

Dutt (64) says that his great-grandfather started with one unit and went on to set up five more units after hard work. With time, two of the units got closed and three are working, that too with low capacity.

At present, only ten workers are there whereas, Dutt said that back in 1990s, there used to be more than 90 workers in the factory. Also, now the manufacturing of the cane crushers is done only on demand basis while in the 90s, there used to be a daily production of 100 quintals of crushers.

It was the only industry which used to supply the pieces to Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and other states, but now there is no work in these states.

“We used to have a turnover of Rs 80,000 per day, and around 1986, we had sold our products for Rs 2 crores in a year and see what we have come to now,” he said.

He explained that family problems, lack of modernization and absence of government support are some of the issues that have led to the downfall of the industry.

From wood to cast iron

Ram Kishan started manufacturing the Belna with a wooden frame. After that, the belna was modified and fabricated by using cast iron. And in 1986, Dutt himself manufactured the vertical type crusher which he said extracts juice from the cane in one go unlike the other horizontal ones.

Family suffers

Dutt said the family was so well settled that his father made him study in a prestigious school at Dagshai in Himachal Pradesh.

“I followed the tradition and admitted both my sons in leading schools in Dehradun. And now, such is the condition that my granddaughters are studying in a local school in Chak Bilga village itself,” he said.

Even after these problems, still Dutt is not ready to change his job, but wants to continue manufacturing the Belna as he says, “Asi ede sir te hi jeene haan (It is just because of this industry that we are living)”.

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