Cooperative sugar mills across State face closure

Cooperative sugar mills across State face closure
Published Date: 3/1/2009 - (NIE)

G Saravanan

Chennai, February 28: WITH the private-run sugar mills eating into their designated command areas and the State Government’s failure to conduct election for cooperative (sugar) societies for the past 42 years, remaining 14 out of 16 cooperativerun sugar mills in the state are facing imminent closure, according to sugarcane farmers.

These cooperative mills were just running to show that they are indeed active, but in reality, they were surviving with a ventilator support, C Nallasamy, president of Lower Bhavani Project Farmers’ Association and field coordinator for Tamil Nadu Toddy Movement told Express.

Out of 16 mills, two mills -- Madurantakam Cooperative Sugar Mills Ltd and National Cooperative Sugar Mills Ltd were not working since 2001-02. “Even after four decades and recommendation by the Vaidyanathan Committee few years ago to conduct elections in such cooperative societies to revitalise their basic concept of cooperation, the State Government did not blink yet,” Nallasamy lamented. Besides 16 cooperative sugar mills, there are two public sector mills and 22 private-owned mills. And very recently, the government has given permission to start another five private mills.

Of the 16 cooperative mills, six of them were commissioned during early 60s and the rest during mid-70s and 80s to enable the cane farmers to get due profit for their products. For a State like TN, 20-25 sugar mills were ideal, but the foray of private players with a much higher per day crushing capacity had complicated the supply chain for the cooperative mills, Vettavalam Manikandan, president of Federation of Sugarcane Farmers Association (TN and Pudhucherry), told Express.

The cooperative mills have a crushing capacity of 2,500 MT per day, while some private mills have the capacity up to 10,000 MT per day. With the cooperative mills incurring several crore of loss every year their intake has decreased drastically forcing the farmers to sell their canes to private mills at a rock-bottom prices, Manikandan decried.

Each cooperative mill has a command area as allotted by the State Government. And, an average of nearly 20,000 to 30,000 farmers, who have registered themselves with the mills, can sell the cane only to the mills. Though the farmers have to be involved in managing the mills, the government chose to run the show with their handpicked officers. The farmers have thus been marginalised completely and the whole system, has failed, Manikandan went on to say.

Further, the government’s move to allow private players to set up mills in the same command areas has killed the very basic set up of cooperative mills, Manikandan added.