Sugarcane cultivation suffers as reservoirs dry up

The ambitious plan of Aska Cooperative Sugar Industries Limited (ACSIL) to raise sugarcane acreage in south Orissa's Ganjam district has suffered a setback with engineers of water resources department turning down a proposal to provide water for sugarcane cultivation.

The oldest sugar industry in cooperative sector in the state aimed to expand the area under sugarcane cultivation during this sugarcane year (October 2011 to September-2012) from 7,282 acres to 9,000 acres.

The irrigation engineers declined to provide water for the sugarcane crop as the water level in almost all the major reservoirs in the district have fallen drastically.

The matter was discussed at the irrigation coordination meeting held at the factory premises recently. Officials of the sugar industry, irrigation engineers, agriculture officials and representatives of the Ganjam district sugarcane growers’ association attended the meeting.

“We have to work out alternative sources of water to save the existing areas, as the engineers of water resources department turned down our proposal to provide irrigation facilities to more area for growing of sugarcane,” said P C Padhy, cane development manager, ACSIL.

ASCIL also intended to ramp up crushing capacity to 0.23 million tonnes. The factory has targeted to crush around 165,000 tonnes of sugarcane this year as against the previous year’s performance of 81,923 tonnes.

Meanwhile, in its general body meeting, the sugarcane growers’ association has demanded increase in sugarcane procurement price from Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,500 per quintal and ensuring irrigation facilities throughout the year .

Two MPs of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD)-Nityanand Pradhan (Lok Sabha) and Renubala Pradhan (Rajya Sabha) who addressed the meeting extended their support to the demands of the cane growers. Former MP and veteran CPI leader DK Panda presided over the meeting.

“The sugarcane cultivation is no more remunerative with this price as the cost of other inputs has increased” said general secretary of the association, Samir Pradhan. Other demands of the association included sugarcane plantation under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).