The Punjab government has chalked out a plan to generate power to the tune of Rs 200 crore per annum by setting up co-generation power plants at all cooperative sugar mills in the state.
Presiding over a one-day workshop organised by Sugarfed to suggest various ways and means to make the state cooperative sugar mills self- sufficient, cooperation minister Capt Kanwaljit Singh said the state cooperative mills had the potential of generating 100-120 mw power annually and the state electricity board had offered to purchase the proposed power at the rate of Rs 2.86 per unit thereby creating an additional revenue of more than Rs 200 crore annually, while the existing losses of all these mills were just pegged at Rs 77.95 crore.
He said a comprehensive revival plan to convert these mills into mega sugar complexes has been drafted. Accordingly, the enhancement in the crushing capacity of the mills has become imperative as now these days a mill having a minimum crushing capacity of 5000 MT sugarcane was only sustainable. Besides this, creation of additional sources of income with special emphasis was being laid on diversification and production of ethanol as the Centre had already allowed the blending of ethanol in petrol and diesel up to 5%, which would be further increased to 10 % in the coming year.
The state government had agreed in principle to grant bottling license to three distilleries of the state cooperative sugar mills and in this regard proposals were being drafted. An amount of Rs 22 crore out of total pending 37 crore arrears of sugarcane growers would be disbursed within a week and efforts were being made to clear all the arrears in near future, Singh informed.
The Registrar Cooperative Societies has been directed to constitute a high-level committee of senior officers to streamline the functioning of cooperative institutions to bring more efficiency and competence in the day to day working thereby cutting short the time of decision making on the pattern of private sectors and submit its report within a stipulated timeframe of one month, Singh said.
He said chairman and board of directors of these mills to work in unison and efficiently to make the farmers realise that cooperative sugar mills were their own mills and asked them to change their mindset and approach keeping in view the ever increasing competition from private players, whose sole aim was to exploit the farmers.