Early sugarcane crushing at Aska Sugar factory

The Aska Cooperative Sugar Industries Limited (ACSIL) in south Orissa's Ganjam district, the oldest sugar factory of the state, has started crushing of sugarcane from Thursday, about a fortnight earlier than the previous year.

The crushing of sugarcane has begun in the wake of mounting demand from the sugarcane farmers for early crushing of cane to ensure higher recovery percentage and better earning.

Even though the sugarcane crop has been damaged due to the untimely rains during the first week of December in some areas, the factory authorities have set a target to crush around 75,000 tonnes of sugarcane during the current season. In the last crushing season, the factory had crushed only 43,606 tonnes of sugarcane and produced 37,895 quintals of sugar with 8.84 per cent of recovery.

This time, the factory authorities hoped for nine per cent recovery as the crushing operations have started earlier.

“Since we have started crushing earlier than the last year, we expect higher recovery of about nine per cent compared to last year's recovery of 8.84 per cent”, a senior official of ASCIL old Business Standard.

The factory authorities have also offered an all time high price of Rs 2000 per tonne of sugarcane this time as against the last time’s price of Rs 1700 per tonne. Besides, the factory is also providing transport subsidy to the farmers, who transport sugarcane from beyond 10 km radius of the factory.

The Ganjam District Sugarcane Growers Association (GDSGA), although happy over the early start of crushing and higher price offered by the factory, has demanded a special package for the sugarcane growers who sustained loss due to the untimely rains in Ganjam district.

“The farmers will not be coming forward to grow the crop, if the government does not provide any relief to the sugarcane growers who suffered because of the untimely rains”, said Samir Pradhan, general secretary of GDSGA.

“We are providing incentives in terms of critical inputs like fertilizer and pesticides to the farmers under the Rastriya Krushi Vikash Yojana (RSVY) at a rate of Rs 3000 per acre”, said P K Padhy, the cane manager of the factory

Similarly Rs 4000 per acre is also provided to the farmers under the RSVY, who go for early plantation with high sucrose seeds. These two schemes have been launched in the district with an outlay of Rs 34 lakh to encourage the farmers to grow sugarcane, he added.