Maharashtra State Cooperative Sugar Factories Federation, a representative body of 121 sugar factories from the state has stressed the need for the continuation of procedure of issuing licences. The Federation said that the Centre has already granted licences for 275 lakh tonnes sugar production when the Ninth Plan target was only 254 lakh tonnes sugar production.

However, Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), a representative organisation of private and public sector sugar factories has welcomed the Centre's decision and added that with this new factories especially from the cooperative sector will not be entitled for incentives in the delicensed regime. The federation's view has been shared by the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF). Bothhave appealed to the Centre that it should not issue new licences and the licences pending with it should be kept in abeyance for the period of five years.

"Since the sugar industry is already delicensed, we are afraid that the problems of the new cooperative sugar factories will be further jeopardised and the newly licensed factories will never come up," it added. In Maharashtra, the total number of installed sugar factories is 121 of which 95 functioned during the crushing season of 1997-98. The Centre has already issued licences for 58 new sugar factories (22 in Eighth Plan and 36 in Ninth Plan). The sugarcane requirement was 452.99 lakh tonnes however, 345.71 lakh tonnes sugarcane has been crushed to produce 38.55 lakh tonnes.

The Federation said that the issue of licence was necessary to ensure the supply of sugarcane to the processing unit located in field. The federation and NFCSF have argued that there was a need to see that already licensed factories particularly in the cooperative and publicsectors were assisted in the commissioning of their sugar plants.

The Federation has demanded that the minimum distance between two factories should be 40 km instead of 15 km as per the Thursday's announcement. It also appealed to the Centre that the lincences to be issued to the new sugar factories should not be in the area of operation of the existing sugar factories.