Things may sweeten up for the 52-odd sugar mills in the state which have remained closed for the last couple of years as these mills are all set to get a new lease of life. The state government has decided to make special efforts to revive these mills in light of the bumper crop expected for the season 2010-11. A special task force and the working committee group created by the government will meet in Pune to chalk out the course forward to put these mills back on steam. A decision is expected by May 27, following which recommendations made by the committee will be put forward to the state Cabinet for approval, Prakash Naiknavare, MD, Maharashtra State Cooperative Sugar Factories Federation (MSCFF) said.
State cooperation minister Harshavardhan Patil had recently directed sugar officials to make special efforts to restart these mills. Of the 52 mills, around 17 mills are beyond repair and among the remaining 35 mills, at least 20 mills fall in the category, which could be immediately revived with some aid in the form of a soft loan. Since 17 mills cannot be revived, the committee may decide to put these up for auction. The working committee group will initially focus on the 20 mills, which are good candidates for revival, Naiknavare said. The government will be required to pump in funds to the tune of Rs 200-300 crore to revive these 20 mills, he said. According to industry watchers, it would be in the interests of the government to provide financial aid because the government would otherwise need to shell out compensation to the tune of Rs 600-700 crore for standing crop.
This season, around 22 mills are still crushing cane and around 10 lakh tons still remains to be crushed. The state has around 141 sugar factories. For the 2010-11 season, the government has directed the state sugar comissionerate to take steps to advance crushing season by one month. Satellite survey reports indicate that the area under sugar cane is expected to increase by 20% from 8 lakh hectares in 2009-10 to 9.50 lakh hectares in 2010-11. Cane output is also expected to increase by 30%. So far in this season mills have crushed around 600 lakh tons and the output is expected to touch 71 lakh tons of sugar.