Sugarcane farmers in Puducherry on Thursday demanded that the EID Parry Sugar Mill and Puducherry Cooperative Sugar Mill be opened to allow crushing of sugarcane produced by them. During a meeting with A. Ramamourti, director of agriculture EID Parry Sugar Mill Sugarcane Farmers’ Coordination Committee president Murugaiyan N. said that the mill in Puducherry had stopped functioning three years ago.
“The mill has been closed claiming loss. They have not faced any loss. The sugarcane produce has not fallen and the government has not taken any effort to reopen the mill though several memorandums have been submitted to them,” he said.
He added that there were nearly 7,000 farmers who were dependent on EID Parry Sugar Mill. “From Wednesday night, even the cooperative sugar mill has been closed. The farmers have to travel to Tamil Nadu to sell their crop and they are facing trouble,” he said.
Cane diverted
T.P. Ravi, general secretary of the committee, alleged that the mill had been showing loss and diverting the cane without permission from the Cane Commissioner. “The sugarcane production this year alone is 6 lakh tonnes. Nearly six months beginning from November is called the main season where sugarcane produce is sent to the mill to be crushed. If they do not open the mills this month, farmers will have to face huge loss again. This will be the third year since the mill stopped crushing sugarcane. Nearly 65% of the raw material supplied to the Puducherry Cooperative Sugar Mill and EIP Parry Sugar Mill was from the farmers from Tamil Nadu. The rest 35% is from Puducherry farmers. The farmers have incurred a huge loss in the last three years,” he said.
Mr. Ramamourti said they had informed the EID Parry Sugar Mill to review the situation and provide a positive response to farmers within 15 days. However, the farmers said that if they did not, they have to provide them no-objection certificate to transport sugarcane to other sugar mills in the neighbouring states.
Madivanan, manager, cane, EID Parry Sugar Mill, said the cane output had fallen by 50%. “To run the mill, at least 4 lakh tonnes of cane is required but we are getting only half of that. We cannot open the mill with less quantity. We are facing extra burden since we are providing the additional cost of transporting sugarcane to the neighbouring State. We have sought help from the government to open a sugar complex with co-generation and distillery. This would help in sustaining the mill,” he added.
