Crushing operations at many sugar mills in Haryana come to halt as cane supply hit

Panipat/Ambala/Yamunanagar, January 21

Crushing operations at several sugar mills came to a halt as protesting farmers stopped supply of sugarcane.

Saraswati Sugar Mill (SSM), Yamunangar, shut down operations at around 11 pm on Saturday after all the stored sugarcanes were used up. The mill received last supply of the raw material yesterday. The SSM has so far crushed around 72 lakh quintal of sugarcane against the target of 175 lakh quintal fixed for this season.

Ready for long haul

It seems that the government wants the farmers to launch another agitation. The farmers are also ready for this challenge. Gurnam Singh Charuni, President, Bhartiya Kisan Union

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More than 100 lakh quintal of sugarcane produce is still standing in the field under command area of SSM. “Abrupt discontinuation of crushing operations due to non-availability of sugarcane will cause huge losses to the mill. Cane juice left in the vessels and pipeline will also deteriorate,” DP Singh, senior vice-president (cane) of SSM, said.

He said SSM would also have to bear cost of fuel and power to restart the factory when the issue of the cane prices would be resolved.

Similarly, operations of Shahabad Cooperatives Sugar Mills in Kurukshetra and Naraingarh Sugar Mills in Ambala also came to halt due to lack of sugarcane supply. Mills in Shahabad have crushed 28.27 lakh quintal so far and has a target to crush around 80 lakh quintal sugarcane. Mills in Naraingarh have crushed 24.5 lakh quintal sugarcane against the target of 55 lakh quintal this season.

Ajaib Singh, cane manager of Naraingarh Sugar Mills, said, “The sugarcane stock in our yard exhausted around midnight. If the supply is not resumed soon, it will adversely affect the crushing this season.”

Meanwhile, the sugarcane farmers continued their protest outside the sugar mills across the state. The farmers have been demanding revision of sugarcane prices from Rs 362 per quintal to Rs 450 per quintal.

Farmer leader Satpal Kaushik said sugarcane farming had become a loss-making business. “If a farmer grows sugarcane on rented land, it costs him Rs 400 per quintal. How can he survive by selling sugarcane for only Rs 362 per quintal” Satpal Kaushik said.

Meeting tomorrow to decide future course

• A five-member committee from each sugarmill will review the farmers’ protest at a meeting scheduled on Jan 23 in Kurukshetra
• Gurnam Singh Charuni, president, BKU, visited the dharna spot in Panipat and Sonepat districts in support of the protesting farmers
• Charuni said the protest would be carried in the name of ‘Kisan Sarkar’ and no sugarmill would be allowed to run till the government revised the sugarcane price