Farmers allege private sugar mills delaying crushing, causing loss

KARNAL: Private sugar mills in the region continue to reap a rich harvest this year, owing to the rise in price of sugar since crushing operations began in November last year.

However, farmers allege that these mills are exploiting sugarcane growers as they are not purchasing sugarcane of their own farmers. The farmers add that the delay in harvesting sugarcane is likely to cause a loss of about 50-100 quintal/acre to them.

Speaking to HT, Vijay Mehta, state general secretary of Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) said, “Private mills are not providing indents to their farmers but the crushing is on. In past four months, Saraswati Sugar Mill (SSM) of Yamunnagar, which crushes more than 30% of the total sugarcane of the state, has crushed only 70% of sugarcane from farmers of the region. We do not know how they will crush the remaining 30% in 25 days.”

“The mills impose penalty on farmers if they cannot provide sugarcane as per bond but nobody asks them as to why they are not supplying indents to farmers,” he said, adding, soon BKU leaders will hold a protest against the mills.

As per reports, the three private sugar mills in the state crush more sugarcane than 10 cooperative sugar mills of the state and one sugar mill of Hafed in Karnal.

“Generally mills crush the entire produce by first or second week of April before the harvesting of wheat. But this year, the mills, especially Saraswati Sugar Mill of Yamunanagar have slowed the crushing and not providing indents in routine,” alleged Krishan Kumar of Radaur, a farmer.

Besides cooperative sugar mills of Shahbad, most of other government mills are not doing well and are not able to crush entire produce of their farmers, who have to sell their produce to private sugar mills of the state and neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

Sources said all the government-run sugar mills, which are facing a loss of ₹2,500 crore, have so far produced about 250 lakh quintal of sugarcane against 300 lakh quintal last year.

“The capacity of cooperative sugar mills is not as per the need. This year, we had a chance to earn huge profits but we could not crush the entire produce and farmers had to sell it to other mills,” said managing director of a cooperative sugar mill, requesting anonymity.

However, private sugar mills’ officials have denied the allegations. Chief operating officer of SSM, SC Sachdeva, said, “Per day crushing is around 90,000 quintal and we don’t purchase sugarcane from farmers of other districts.”