Gurdaspur, June 25: The state government has fulfilled a long-pending demand of sugarcane farmers by deciding to increase the crushing capacity of two cooperative sugar mills located in the border district.
Gurdaspur district is home to Batala and Paniar sugar factories. But in view of the low capacity of the mills, farmers travel long distances to get the produce crushed from private sugar mills.
Co-operation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa on Sunday claimed the decades-old cooperative mills were being modernised.
“The capacity of the Paniar mill will be increased from 2,000 to 5,000 TCD (tonnes of cane per day), while the Batala mill’s capacity will be increased from 1,500 to 3,500 TCD. Later, it may be enhanced to 7,000 TCD,” Randhawa said.
The Paniar mill caters to Pathankot, Dinanagar, Gurdaspur, Dhariwal and Naushera Majha Singh areas, while farmers of Qadian, Dera Baba Nanak and Fatehgarh Churian go to the Batala mill.
Satbir Singh Sultani, vice-president, Punjab Kirti Kisan Union, claimed that despite this year’s bumper sugarcane harvest, farmers faced several hardships.
“In the absence of a good infrastructure and low crushing capacities of the two mills, farmers transported their produce to private mills as far as the Chadha mill in Kiri Afghana and Rana sugar mills in Buttar (Amritsar).
It is neither feasible nor financially viable for farmers to carry their produce to far-flung areas. That is why farmers’ unions were demanding modernisation of the mills. This should have done three decades ago,” he said.
Tarlok Singh Behrampur, a sugarcane farmer in the forefront of the struggle to get the factories modernised, said: “On one hand, the government asks farmers to break the vicious paddy-wheat cycle and, on the other, it does not support us if we diversify by growing sugarcane. Ever since its inception in 1963, the Batala mill has been working at 1,500 TCD. And Paniar unit at 2,000 TCD since it was established in 1978.”
Farmers’ unions have Union leaders have decided to honour Randhawa on his next visit to Gurdaspur, which is his home district.
Source Tribune India
