State to modernise two sugar mills

Two sugar mills in Orissa- Aska Cooperative Sugar Industries Limited (ACSIL) and Bargarh Cooperative Sugar Mills (BCSM) are set to be modernised at an investment of Rs 7.34 crore.

The state government had made a budgetary provision of Rs 7.34 crore this year for modernisation of the two sugar mills based on the recommendations of the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) under the Union ministry of agriculture.

The expert team of NCDC had visited ACSIL and BCSM last year and recommended to the state government for replacement and renovation of important machineries to boost production in both the sugar mills.

The team pointed out that ACSIL and BCSM being old sugar mills, there was an urgent need for renovation of plant and machineries.

The expert team had estimated the cost of renovation of ACSIL at Rs 4.71 crore and that of BCSM at Rs 2.63 crore.

Both these sugar mills contribute significantly to the livelihood of thousands of sugarcane farmers. The mills also provide employment opportunities for the people of Ganjam and Bargarh districts.

ACSIL was set up in 1959 with a sugarcane crushing capacity of 1,219 tonnes per day. The crushing capacity was upgraded to 2,500 tonnes per day in 1994-95 by the state government with the help of a loan from NCDC.

The sugar mill has also a distillery unit which produces country liquor that is supplied to the state-owned Orissa State Beverages Corporation. In 2008-09, ACSIL produced 67,115.58 quintals of sugar. The factory had crushed 72,283.94 tonnes of sugarcane during the year.

Similarly, BCSM had crushed 27,270.8 tonnes of sugarcane and produced 24,589 quintals of sugar during 2008-09, sources said.           

The expert team of NCDC pointed out that this mill was not functioning properly with the sugar recovery being as low as 8.7-9 per cent compared to the other sugar mills in the state where recovery is more than 10.5 per cent.

Due to low sugar extraction, the sugar factory is losing about Rs 1-1.20 crore per annum at the current level of crushing operations.