Sugar Mills of W Champaran owe Rs 217 cr to sugarcane growers

Speed Post News Network

Bagaha : With only five Sugar Mills available in West Champaran district for crushing sugarcane, 74 lakh quintal of Sugarcane crop is still in the fields. The five Sugar Mills in West Champaran are located at Majhaulia, Harinagar, Lauria, Nakrkatiaganj, and Bagaha.

About 80%  population of West Champaran depends on agriculture and mainly produce sugarcane as cash crop.

The whole economy of farmers revolves round these sugar factories but these factories rarely comply with the provisions of Bihar Sugarcane Supply and purchase Act. The sugarcane growing farmers always face economic crisis due to inordinate delay in payment for the sugarcane crop purchased from them.

According to Sugarcane Officer, Bettiah, Umesh Kumar Singh, around 490 crore quintal of sugarcane was produced in 2017-2018 season and still around 74 lakh quintal sugarcane are standing in the field. The Sugar Mills are still to pay Rs 217 crore to the sugarcane growers from whom they had purchased sugarcane. These Sugar Mills had puchased sugarcane worth Rs 1,054 crore.

Only New Swadeshi Sugar Mills, Narakatiaganj, has better payment record compared to other factories though it too owes around Rs 7 crore  to the sugarcane growers of Narakatiaganj. The payment record of Tirupati Sugars Limited, Bagaha, is poor as it owed Rs 103 crore to the sugarcane growers till March 22, 2018. It had purchased sugarcane worth Rs 264 crore.

A meeting of all sugar factories of West Champaran was held at Bettiah on March 23, 2018. DM, West Champaran, Neelesh Ramchandra Deore, has told all the five sugar factories that none of them would  be permitted to close the factory without crushing cane of their respective area. The DM also told them to clear the dues of sugarcane growers at any cost as Bihar Sugarcane Act makes it mandatory for the Sugar Mills to pay the price of sugarcane within a fortnight from the date of the supply of the cane.

Meanwhile, a member of Zonal Development Council, Bagaha, Tej Pratap alias Pramod Singh,  said the farmers are more concerned about the timely and actual payment for their produce.