Sugarcane crushing begins at Palwal cooperative sugar mill
The 41st cane crushing season at the government-owned cooperative sugar mill was launched here today. It was inaugurated formally by Gaurav Gautam, Minister of State for Youth Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, Sports and Law and Legislative Affairs.
Speaking on the occasion, Gautam said the mill catered to the sugarcane growers of four districts of Palwal, Faridabad , Nuh and Gurugram. He said it was expected to surpass the target crushing of around 28 lakh quintal of cane this year in the estimated schedule. He honoured the farmers who were the first ones to bring their produce to the mill on the first day of the crushing season. He said the mill management had started the facility of a canteen to offer meals at a nominal rate of Rs 10 only to the farmers reaching the mill to drop their cane. Besides, facilities like a rest house, drinking water, wash rooms and a recreation room have also been set up for the farming community.
With the mill established as Palwal Cooperative Sugar Mill Society in 1973 , cane crushing was started in the year 1984-85 with a capacity of 1250 tonnes of cane per day(TCD), according to DC Dr Harish Vashisth. He said the crushing capacity of the mill had reached upto 2200 TCD at present, with sugarcane area spread over a radius of 32 km. He said the mill crushed 25.56 lakh quintal of sugarcane and produced 2,58,080 quintal of sugar with 9.97 per cent recovery last season. This season, the mill was expected to get about 28 lakh quintal of sugarcane for crushing, said Vishal, MD of the sugar mill.
It may be recalled activists of the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) had resorted to a sit-in outside the cooperative sugar mill on November 18 in protest against the delay in starting the cane crushing season. The mill has been in news over the past few years due to technical snags that hamper its operations due to technical issues. A snag in the mill turbine led to a forced break of more than four days in its crushing operation soon after the start of the formal operation in November last year. It was upgraded at a cost of over Rs 12 crore in 2019- 20, it is reported.
